Familial Bonding
by keysmashtoinfinityandbeyond
Summary: Rei's brother and cousin drop in to see how he's going, and to fuck shit up. Or to get people to fuck. It's hard to tell. (SeiMako with a side of Ryuugazaki familial shenanigans. Also possible Rin/Oc that happened purely by accident. I swear, I don't even know where it came from.)
1. 1: Addressing the Issue of Siblings

Seijuurou was never the kind of guy to make a huge scene about anything. He preferred not to in fact, but there were times where he was tempted. Tempted specifically by the one Makoto Tachibana and by god how the temptation killed him.

The Samezuka captain walked over, as casually as he could manage, as though he didn't have any nagging thoughts about the tall boy, and stood just outside their little circle and listened to their pre-practice small-talk.  
"Eh.. my sisters were bullying me again," Nagisa was complaining. "They tried to get me into one of their dresses again. It's so annoying!" he whined.  
"Eh? They're still picking on you like that?" Rin asked, "Man, I thought they would have given up on that ages ago,"  
"Say, that got me thinking. I know Rin-chan and Gou-chan are siblings, Haru-chan's an only child, and Mako-chan has Ren-chan and Ran-chan, but I never found out about Rei-chan's family,"  
All of a sudden, the blue-haired first year seemed to go into a bit of a panic. "I, uh, well there's my mother and fath-"  
"Yes, we know," a rather impatient Nagisa cut in, "but what about your siblings?"  
"I- well, um- I have an older brother," he eventually murmured. It was barely audible within the small huddle and Seijuurou had to strain quite a reasonable amout to hear properly.  
"Eh? How cool! I bet he's just like you!" Nagisa chirped.  
"I- uh," Rei coughed uncomfortably, "Quite the opposite really. We don't talk much,"  
Makoto tilted his head to one side (to which Seijuurou supressed the urge to sigh loudly at). "Really? I had imagined you would have been very similar,"  
"My brother has had many... outside influences," Rei replied, finally regaining his analytical composure, "most noteably our older cousin who he is cur he is currently living with further south for university,"  
There was a collective "ahh," and then some "that would make sense"s and "I never thought of that"s.

With their curiositities sated (for now), Rei retreated to the pool, but the peace was not to be for long. During their break, Nitori came running to them from the locker room waving Rei's phone, saying something about a "Yousuke" calling, and that there were already ten missed calls.  
Panic seemed to break out on the blue-haired boy's face like acne on a teenager. Whoever it was seemed to have spoken immediately because Rei's face dropped and a hand was quickly slapped to his forehead, though this changed after a few moments when his expression changed to one of complete and utter shock.  
"Wai-, Hold o-, What? H-, Oh no, no, no, no, no. I don't have enough bloody space!" his voice had gone shrill by the end of it, grabbing everyone's attention, although he himself didn't seem to notice.  
There was a brief pause, and then a definite, "No," as if the person on the other end was attempting to bargain at something. Several members of both swim teams had begun to become worried at this point, since Rei was normally incredibly composed and very difficult to evoke such agitation from. "Why are you calling last minute anyway?"  
There was another pause.  
"Osaka has it's own bay! And beaches! And better facilities! Why can't you just do it there?" He shouted into the phone.  
There was a brief response from the other end and then, "**The sea looks the bloody same everywhere you git,**"  
There was a longer pause this time and half way through a look of mild terror had set in his eyes somewhere, but his irritation apparently still won out. "No."  
A short response, and then, "There will be room available,"

At this point, Nagisa, who had been listening intently, positively lit up like a fairy light on Christmas night and jumped onto Rei's back, forcing a piggy back from him and causing him to jump out of his skin, almost dropping his phone.  
"Ne, Rei-chan," the small blonde started, "are you having visitors?"  
"A-absolutely not!" Rei barked back.  
At this point, whoever was on the other end of the line decided to pipe up and yelled through the phone, "HELLO REI'S FRIEND. NICE TO MEET YOU. I'M GLAD OUR LITTLE BUTTERFLY-CHAN IS BEING SOCIABLE," which was then promptly followed by hysterical laughter from the speaker and one other female audience.  
"Butterfly-chan?" Nagisa repeated with an obnoxiously genuine curiosity.  
Rei was positively red all over, matching the lovely shade of his glasses, and began sputtering nervously and slamming the "end call" button on his phone hard enough to almost dent the small device before running off shouting that break was over.  
Needless to say, everyone was fairly bewildered. Rin and Seijuurou shared a look and shrugged, as did Makoto and Haru, but Nagisa, optimistic as ever, stuck a finger in the air and declared, "Rei-chan is hiding something!" Then turning to his friends, "We must investigate the matter,"  
The rest found themselves in the pool with Rei sooner than they had expected.

There was still some teasing and questions in the locker room after practice but, thankfully for Rei, the joke got old quite soon and he was left alone. The ride home seemed to be shorter than they normally were that evening and his heart sunk with dread when he saw the small red Mustang attached to a trailer loaded with a jet-ski and other water-sporting equipment. He sighed and got off his bike, walking the last few steps up to the from of his apartment where he found two familiar faces fast asleep in the small car. A small smile of fondness graced his face as he watched them for a small while. It had been two years since he'd seen either of them and they'd appeared to change a lot. Older, definitely; perhaps taller and it looked like they had been under quite some amount of stress. Rei sighed. How odd that they were so fiendishly immature and trouble-seeking while they were awake, but so incredibly… incredibly adult when they weren't paying attention to the world.

Rei raised a hand and tapped on the window of the car door.


	2. 2: A Special Audience

That Friday at Iwatobi High School passed as normally as one ever would. The shenanigans from last night's training at Samezuka were forgotten, as was Nagisa's brief career as a detective. The bell signalling the end of school rung and Rei breathed a sigh of relief. Looks like there was nothing to be worried about after all. He packed his bag and made his way out to the front of the school to meet with the rest of his team before they left to Samezuka. They did this every day, somewhat like a nice tradition that they simply decided on, and Rei liked it that way; it was almost systematic. Something Rei did not like, however, was having the metaphorical spanner thrown into such systems, and boy was slapped in the face with one of them today.

Two figures were standing towards the side of the front gate of Iwatobi High. One was a tall young man with hair as blue as Rei's, although longer, reaching past his shoulders and draping over a good third of his face, and seemed to be unkempt enough to almost give the impression of dreadlocks. He appeared to be quite a bit taller than Rei, however. Tall enough to perhaps even surpass Seijuurou, the Samezuka swim captain. He wore a loose fitting (and obnoxiously pink) tank top, mostly hidden under an open, black hoodie, paired with pastel yellow board shorts and white vans.

The other was a young woman, probably at the same age as the man. Her hair was bleached a light blonde with hints of a faded light pink dye through the short locks. She had an Anne Hathaway-like cut, though longer and almost as messy as the man's. She donned a grey, oversized sweater and neon green shorts that were about five inches longer than her sweater which reached her mid thigh. Unlike the young man, she was barefoot and appeared to be shorter than Rei.

The two seemed to be relatively unaware of their surroundings as they chatted to each other. Students who were leaving the school would carefully edge their way around whilst trying to avoid seeming rude, but the pair were too engrossed in their conversation to notice. On the other end of the front gate stood Rei's fellow team mates (in the usual place where they waited for him) who were quietly talking amongst themselves, no doubt about the odd pair across from them. Nagisa had been the one to peek out from their little huddle, noticing Rei and positively beaming like a beacon at spotting him. But before Rei could signal for him to keep quiet, the cheery blonde had begun hollering.

"REI-CHAN~"

Immediately, the two young adults' heads snapped in the direction of Nagisa, their gazes sharp as knives as they followed the short blonde's line of sight to Rei, who was frozen like a stunned goat.

"CHOU-CHAN!"*

And within the blink of an eye, the two had launched themselves at the first year. The blonde woman latched onto his back while the man came in with a sweeping hug and picked the both of them up and off the ground.  
"REI, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH," the man cried, swinging the boy around in circles once the woman had grounded herself.  
"N-Nii-san? Shun? Why are you at my school?" Rei asked, as he was being swung. "And more importantly, WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME BY THAT RIDICULOUS NICKNAME IN PUBLIC?!"  
"Nii-san?" Nagisa repeated as he ran up to them. "You're Rei's brother?"  
"Yeah!" The young man smiled at Nagisa, finally planting Rei back on solid earth (much to his relief). "Hey, you're the kid who was on the phone right?"  
"You're the one who called Rei?" Nagisa asked back excitedly.  
"Don't talk about that right now!" Rei immediately blurted angrily. Or he tried at least he tried to sound angry through all his embarrassment.  
"Yeah," the man chuckled, pinching his brother's cheek. "This kid's my little brother. I'm Yousuke, by the way," he added, "and this," the pointed his thumb at the blonde lady who waved and gave a happy smile, "is our cousin Shun,"  
"Eh, you really are as different as Rei said," Makoto finally worked up the nerve to speak.  
Yousuke blinked at Makoto before turning back to Rei. "Aww baby bro, why would you say that? Thy harsh words doth wound mine heart, truly," he professed while he squished his brother's cheeks.  
"We could not be more different!" Rei retaliated, flailing his arms at his brother in an attempt to ward him off. "We don't even look the same and genetically speaking-"

The argument between them trailed off from there and Shun decided to approach Rei's friends.  
"Hi, Yousuke's already introduced me, but I'm Shun. It's nice to meet you," she smiled. "I apologise for them. They get quite excitable when they're together,"  
"That's okay Shun-chan!" Nagisa immeditately replied. "I'm Nagisa and this is Haru-chan, Mako-chan and Gou-chan," he introduced his friends, pointing respectively as he did. The red-headed girl said nothing, but shot Nagisa a glare instead. Nagisa responded by blowing a raspberry.  
"Shun-chan?" Shun mouthed to the others in confusion, but they only shrugged back, having no way to really explain why Nagisa called everyone by 'chan'. A moment passed and Shun simply shrugged back. Whatever. "Well it's certainly nice to finally meet you guys. Rei talks about you a lot."  
"Seriously?" Makoto asked.  
"Yeah, he's been keeping us updated since he was offered a place. Yousuke was pretty bummed out that he didn't get invited along to your camp though," she smiled, looking back over to the brothers who were still wrestling with each other. Scratching the back of her head, she sighed before starting to break up the fight.

"That's enough you two," she scolded, but when that didn't stop them, she simply grabbed them both by the backs of their necks like one would a cat and pulled them apart as they flailed their arms in pain.  
"Yousuke, leave Rei alone. He has to go to training," she told off to older boy who turned the other way and sulked in retaliation. Both Rei and Shun simply rolled their eyes. "Speaking of which, would it be alright if we came along, Kou-san?" Shun asked Gou.  
The Iwatobi manager beamed brightly. Perhaps Rei had told her of her fights with Nagisa over her name. Either way, she was absolutely thrilled to be called by her preferred name. "Of c-"  
"Absolutely not!" Rei blurted, standing himself between Shun and Gou to get in the older girl's face. "Shun, you know what 'Suke is like. You can't just-"  
"Rei," Shun cut him off with a raised eyebrow, "Your brother has not seen you in two years and he would like to witness the wonderful work that got you to regionals. We are coming along."

Rei took to sulking alongside his brother.

"'Not alike' he says," the blonde muttered to herself as she rejoined the others.

The trip to Samezuka was interesting to say the least. Rei and Yousuke were pointing things out and showing off their hometown to Shun (who had never travelled very far from Osaka) while Nagisa, Makoto, Haru and Gou watched the three in a light of near-awe. Yousuke (who they learned was to be celebrating his twenty-first birthday within the fortnight) and Rei (who was normally quite immune to "fun") were behaving like excitable five year olds telling their mother (in this case Shun) about adventures they had at "that tree by that river there" and "the parking lot that used to be where that playground is now" as said locations passed in flashes on the other side of the train windows. Their faces were so animated with such childish joy, and it occurred to Makoto that no one had ever asked Rei about his childhood years much at all. Having spent so much time together and being incredibly close to Haru, Nagisa and Rin, the only times when they talked about their childhood was to poke fun at each other or reminisce about their days as the top junior relay team, and oftentimes, Rei was left out of the equation. The fact that he only smiled pleasantly or laughed along without giving much of his own input didn't help much either. Either way, this was nice, whatever "this" was.

There were quick introductions made when they arrived at the Samezuka pool. First to Rin, who met them at the front gate, then to the other members of his team who were stretching inside. Seijuurou, they were told, was getting scolded for something he'd done in class. It was his final year after all, and many students in their last year found excuses of varying levels to pull pranks or be silly in class. After introductions had been made the swim teams returned to their stretches and such, and the visitors found themselves a seat nearby and made small talk. It took them less than three minutes to develop a case of insatiable giggles, Yousuke falling over and being unable to get back up in the process.

It was at this point that Seijuurou entered the scene, walking directly past them in all his shirtless glory which silenced the trio for less than a second before they burst into a fit of even louder giggles; this time with Yousuke being reduced to tears, Shun looking as though someone had shot her in the stomach and Gou hiding her face with her hands.

Looking rather disorientated, Seijuurou walked over to the others and thumbed towards the trio. "I'm going to assume someone knows what's going on,"  
Makoto, who had been watching on bewilderedly as was everyone else, simply shrugged as the pair began to slap each other's shoulders. The Iwatobi captain turned to Rei, who had assumed the fetal position by the edge of the pool, and tilted his head to the side. What was going on?  
"Um… Rei…" he started.  
"Please do not associate myself with them at this point in time please," was the immediate response.  
"But what are they laughing about?" Seijuurou asked out of genuine curiosity.  
"They're probably going about abs and muscles and attractive people," the blue haired boy replied woefully and went limp as a jelly stick, slipping into the pool head-first as Seijuurou's face went red as his hair at the realisation that not only Gou, but also the cute-looking blonde girl and equally cute-looking dreadlocked guy had gone into hysterical giggles after checking him out. Rei had to be rescued by Makoto a moment later.

A few minutes passed and the hysteria passed along with it, leaving the two young adults and Iwatobi manager to simply watch on and chat quietly. Rei didn't know for sure exactly what his brother and cousin were discussing with each other, but judging from the look on their faces, he had a good idea. They were like the proud parents of a kindergartener who was competing in their first race, but that was to be expected. Yousuke was the sentimental kind of person and they hadn't talked much over the last two years. The older brother had made a lot of effort to keep in contact, but Rei kept most of their conversations short. It was annoying to have his brother chasing after him like a worried parent. Not even their own mother kept tabs on him as closely as Yousuke did. It was embarrassing.

He tried to forget about it and focus on swimming, but the endless questions he was getting didn't help him in the least. He sighed and slumped against a wall during the break, pretending to look absolutely and utterly exhausted so the others would ignore him. His plan worked for a while until this relatives randomly appeared by the pool and the blood immediately drained from his face. _They wouldn't, would they?  
_The two approached Seijuurou and Yousuke appeared to be animatedly negotiating something with him.  
Oh no.  
His brother's face lit up in joy as he began running towards the unused lane.  
**No. Dear god no.**

Jacket and shirt were stripped and tossed to the side as he dived into the pool, board shorts and all and a squeal of delight could be heard from Gou's general direction. He didn't have the grace of the swimmers, but an incredible power from the young man's built legs allowed him to glide and resurface close to twenty metres down the length of the pool. It was nothing to be particularly impressed about, but the Samezuka captain walked up to Rei anyway.

"He's got quite a kick," he said in passing, watching as the young man allowed himself to float to the other end of the pool and the blonde girl trotted beside him.  
"There is no beauty in his actions. They're too unrefined for him to be a swimmer," Rei returned critically, attempting to keep his gaze in a separate direction.  
"Still, it's pretty c-" he cut himself off as the young woman removed her oversized sweater to reveal a bright blue sports bikini underneath, paired with her neon green board shorts.

The whole room went silent as she hopped into the lane with her cousin and the sound of noses bleeding could be heard if one tried hard enough. Samezuka was an all boy's academy after all. Rei was tempted to groan in embarrassment, but instead, found himself tilting his head. He didn't remember Shun looking quite as built as she was. As a matter of fact, he didn't remember Yousuke being very built either. What he did remember, however, was that they both hated the prospect of exerting energy in any kind of sport, so why were they now so fit now?

"Your relatives are athletic people too, huh?" Seijuurou asked weakly, the image of Shun's toned body still burnt into his irises.  
"It would appear so," Rei replied absentmindedly, his past conversations with his brother running through his head. Come to think of it, he did remember Yousuke mentioning something about trying out a water sports and dragging Shun into it with him. This must've been the root to their athleticism.

Shun and Yousuke swam laps of various strokes (some seemingly completely made up) alongside the team throughout the three hour practice. While the squads took regular breaks, Yousuke and Shun did not stop to catch a breath of air. Given they were swimming considerably slower than the rest, but to be swimming for a whole hour seemed somewhat tiring to the captains and after some pushing and shoving, Seijuurou eventually got (an incredibly reluctant) Makoto to approach the two.

"Uh… Shun-san, don't you think you need to stop for a break? You've been going for an hour now," Makoto asked as Shun approached the starting block.  
"Eh?" was the bewildered response as she raked her hair out of her face with her fingers. "I suppose you don't feel as tired if you're not swimming against the current,"  
"You swim in the sea?" Seijuurou asked from behind Makoto, peering over the other captain as Yousuke approached the wall to do a turn.  
"Yeah. We do wakeboarding so it's just easier practice in the sea," she replied, "but we're fine. Thanks for asking boys," she smiled before taking back off, closely tailing Yousuke.

The Samezuka captain held a quick meeting with his team after the practice to discuss the day's progress. There was, alas, none due to the blonde's appearance. He had noticed several members taking breaths longer than they needed to get glimpses of the girl under the water while others were too busy trying to show off rather than improve. All efforts, however, were redundant in the end as the girl didn't seem to even bat an eye at them after pulling herself out of the pool, instead running up to her cousin as he was climbing out and tackling him back in. Rei's shriek of anger was terrifying to say the least. Well, it was terrifying until Shun dunked him under the water again.

Yousuke, however, ran up to Makoto and Seijuurou, inviting them to Rei's house for an impromptu "welcome back" party that they threw for themselves, much to his brother's dismay. Seijuurou made the executive decision to only invite select members of his team, i.e Rin, Gou, Nitori and himself. He had to, however, promise to get Shun's number for the team or they threatened to storm Rei's apartment.

* * *

*Chou is the romanisation of "butterfly" in Japanese so Butterfly-chan = Chou-chan.


	3. 3: Party Animals

An hour later, everyone found themselves on the train again.  
"I told you it was a bad idea," Shun grumbled to Yousuke.  
"At least your pants are dry," Yousuke shot back.  
"Yeah, but I can't put my **damn sweater on because my suit is still wetter than the goddamn ocean,**" Shun replied with a tone more frigid than death itself. "I'm _cold_, asshole,"  
"Then put your damn sweater on!"  
"Then it'll be wet!"  
"Well do you want to be wet or cold? It's your choice,"  
"If you don't shut your mouth, I'll fucking take my fucking sweater and stuff it down your throat."

Rei had never been more thankful for the emptiness of the trains after practice.  
"They can be pretty scary sometimes, huh?" Gou whispered to Rei uneasily.  
"Such is the way of university students I suppose," the blue haired first-year sighed. "Why are they like this?"

Eventually Shun donned her sweater, with quite a bit of grumbling involved, and the verbal dagger-throwing ceased. Later still, their mood had lightened up enough for normal conversation to be a viable option. It was when they had gotten half way from the station to Rei's house that Yousuke made a short squeaking noise causing the whole troupe to jump in fear.  
"What is it?" Haru asked, the first to voice his concern.  
"We forgot to buy non-alcoholic drinks for the party!" he exclaimed.  
"What?! Gou! You need to go home. Now," Rin ordered, spinning her around by the shoulders.  
"Whaat? But I'm already here!" She whined.  
"I don't care," Rin snapped back, "I won't have you drinking until you're eighteen,"  
"But Nii-san, you're **seventeen**," Gou shot back, becoming increasingly irritated.  
"Well- y'know, people get handsy and stuff," her brother replied, "and the last thing I want is for this idiot captain to start calling me 'Nii-chan'," he averted his gaze to said redheaded captain who just laughed at him, and Rin narrowed his eyes as though they'd had this conversation before.  
Yousuke tilted his head at the exchange before turning to his brother, "Chou-chan, why don't you call me 'Nii-chan'?"  
Rei's face went pink as a peach. "N-Now's not the time! Plus, it's stupid to call you 'chan'. You're the farthest thing from cute,"  
"Whaat?" Yousuke whined. "Rei-chaan. Why are you like this? I thought we were tight!"  
Gou lifted a brow, but decided to ignore the brotherly quarrel. "Makoto-senpai, I don't have to go do I?" she asked, turning to him for support.  
Makoto looked like he was about to be shot. "Uh, That's really not my call to make…"  
"What? No way!" The red-headed girl cried.  
"Gou. Go home." Rin ground out.  
Gou pouted angrily, crossing her arms and refusing to budge and Rin groaned, slapping his forehead.  
No one wanted to intervene.

"Uh, how's this for an idea:" Shun spoke up after a long while of tense silence, "why don't you come along with us and we'll chill a bit before we head back. After we drop off the drinks I'll drive you home, alright?"  
Rin eyed the older girl carefully, then his sister who still refused to change, then back to Shun but opted to say nothing. Rin didn't know her very well, but she couldn't be all that bad if she was related to Rei, right? Gou appeared to stick to her silent treatment.  
"What if I treat you to something? Soda, snacks, ice cream? I've got a little cash I can burn and I've got a pretty sweet ride so we can take it a little ways out and test my engine too?" Shun tried to coax her out of the party. Rin had seemed pretty adamant about her not being there, and despite attempting to look like he was just being an asshole about it, Shun could smell concern through all the bullshit.  
Shun was unsuccessful, earning herself an even more stubborn response from Gou.  
"Do you want to hang out tomorrow then?" Yousuke offered. "We'll treat you to stuff, although we've gotta train a little at some point near the evening,"  
There was a little more resolute anger from Gou's end, then a tiny, "Training?"  
"It'll be mainly me listening to her boss me about, but it's kinda hardcore training to build up my core to get some waking in before the season ends. You could stay if you want?" Yousuke replied.  
"Core training?" she asked, eyes sparkling with Shun-didn't-exactly-want-to-know-what. "Well, it doesn't sound too bad then," she said before farewelling the others. there was a bit of a jumbled collective farewell back and before long, Gou had led Yousuke and Shun in the other direction.  
"Oh, and you can start the party without us," Yousuke called after them. "Don't drink too much alright?"  
That, unfortunately, did not happen. And with everyone except for Seijuurou being underaged, they got pretty tipsy pretty quickly to say the least.  
Haru was the first to get knackered. Walking around with his box of Iwatobi-chan phone charms, he continued to bother everyone and give away as many as possible.  
Rin, being naturally competitive against Haru, made a big deal out of giving away more than Haru. Needless to say that their competition didn't go very far with an audience of five people, three of which were already on the team.  
Nitori, who only required something like three sips of beer to get him dizzy, sat down quietly and took a nap on the couch.  
Nagisa, on the other hand; excitable, bubbly Nagisa was busy bouncing off the walls and asking people ridiculous personal questions, with "people" being just Rei.  
Rei drank to deal with Nagisa, and by doing so spiralled into his fantasy world of beautiful things which he simply would not shut up about.  
Makoto, feeling responsible, and also having a low tolerance for alcohol, only drank half of his beer so he could keep an eye on the others.  
Seijuurou tried to be responsible as well. The keyword here, dear readers, is the word _tried_, but it was a valiant effort nonetheless. He'd only had a beer and a half (the half being the one Makoto asked to share with him), but he was starting to think he was thinking crazy things. With Shun yet to return, the unconventionally attractive university student wasn't there to distract him from Makoto. The third-year found himself watching the Iwatobi captain as he ran about trying to keep everyone from breaking things or making too much noise. _Cute_, he thought. _Wait- what? Forget it. It was probably nothing._ He was, of course, doing nothing to help calm the situation.

He took a sip from his almost drained can of beer (yeah, the one he shared with Makoto) and sighed as he watched him run after Nagisa who was waving a bottle of tabasco sauce and daring people to gurgle it. Rin and Haru obviously had to make a competition to see who could stand it longer and Makoto's cries of "No! Don't do that!" seemed to incredibly cute to Seijuurou's beer-fuzzed mind.  
_It would be nice to hang around that kid more, _he thought._ Yeah, it'd be real nice._

It was at that point that Shun and Gou burst through the door, a box of sodas each, and slammed the door shut, deadlocking the door behind them and collapsing in hysterical, utterly maniacal laughter as a clearly audible thud of someone else running into the door sounded. Rei had on many occasions believed Nagisa to be the height of insanity, but that was only because he tried to block moments like these from his memory.  
"RYUUGAZAKI SHUN, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE. I'LL FUCKING SKIN YOU ALIVE AND DROP YOU IN A VAT OF LEMON JUICE, I SWEAR ON MY FUCKING BOARD I'LL FUCKING DO IT," was Yousuke's enraged voice from outside as Shun struggled reopen the door through her laughter.  
"What did you do this time?" Rei asked from his fell-onto-the-table-and-couldn't-be-bothered-to-ge t-back-up position.  
Yousuke slammed the door open, the wooden pane making an audible bang against his cousins knee. It looked (and sounded) like it would have hurt quite a bit, but Shun simply rolled the other way and continued to laugh. "'Look at the fish under the docks!' she says. 'You have to look closer,' she says. 'It's your shitty eyesight,' she says. THE LYING FUCK TOSSED ME INTO** THE FUCKING SEA!**" Yousuke yelled, kicking Shun in the butt for extra measure as she and Gou continued to laugh in their fetal positions on the ground. In response to the undesired effect, Yousuke picked out what appeared to be a short length of seaweed from his messy mop hair and tossed it at Shun's face. A moment of silence amongst the others was used to process the information that Yousuke had just provided them before everyone else burst into fits of laughter as well, several members of the party falling over as they were at it.

Shun stood and sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. "Looks like they're a little more drunk than we thought," she said as she came down from her hysterics.

"Looks like it," Yousuke agreed, setting his box of drinks down and helping Gou up. "It also looks like the _perfect opportunity to play party games_," he added excitedly as he more or less bounced into the festivities.  
"YEAH. PARTY GAMES!" Nagisa screeched from the other end of the apartment, throwing his fists into the air.  
Both Shun and Gou were glad to leave the boys to their drunken rage.

The new drinking game for the night was apparently "take a shot whenever Haru mentions water". Makoto, finally relaxing a bit after the "responsible adults" had returned, decided to join in the fun. It didn't take very long for him to get drunk, especially when they decided to play drunk twister. The players were Makoto, Seijuurou, Nagisa and Rei (because Nagisa finally got him drunk enough to stop being a tightarse) with Haru as the spinner while Rin sat beside him trying to talk sexy about water to get him to talk about it as well (and thus costing everyone shots).

It was essentially normal twister with beer and whiskey shots placed on each spot. Blue and green are assigned beer shots, red and yellow were assigned whiskey shots. If it landed on blue or green, the spinner had to take a beer shot with the player. Needless to say, it didn't take awfully long for them to get highly uncoordinated and all that really mattered was getting another shot and staying in a relatively upright position.

From Yousuke's point of view, it was really quite interesting to watch. Four very tall, very muscular, generally "big" guys all tangled up in each other. It made it all the more interesting when he finally picked up on the tension between a few of them. Well, one of them. Seijuurou appeared to be eyeballing Makoto quite a bit throughout the night. He wondered how much more tension he could create if he stuck a foot in here or there.

It started with the random tackling and hugging after a game. The four playing would topple and end up in a heap, and Yousuke would join the throng making kissy faces at people or tickling them. Seijuurou did a lot of looking away when Yousuke got close to Makoto. It was weird, but tolerable.

Then came the unnecessary PDA. Yousuke started with the others. Nagisa was the first, though that plan seemed to backfire somewhat since Nagisa decided to be just as cuddly right back. Not that Yousuke seemed to mind. If anything, he seemed to infect Nagisa with his PDA as they both set off to harrang people together.

Rei was the next and most harassed target who had to endure both Nagisa's insistent face-rubbing, cheek pinching and whines for attention, and Yousuke's all-encompassing hugs thanks to his generally huge body. Seijuurou seemed to be pretty thankful for that. _So long as the handsy fucker stays away from Makoto_, he thought, but he thought too soon. Rei had entertained the pair for quite a while, but after Nagisa and Rei started to fall asleep on each other Yousuke moved on. Makoto; poor, shy, darling Makoto was the next victim.

Makoto also turned out to be the shy kind of drunk which was no surprise at all, and was simultaneously great and terrible for Seijuurou. Great because Makoto always looked cute when he was flustered or panicky, terrible because he was being _cute and flustered and panicky around goddamn Yousuke while he was stuck playing drunk twister with Rin's ass pressed up against his face_. If he was going to be honest with himself, he was kinda glad to have the kid's butt in his face because at least he looked like he had a reason to be pissed off until Yousuke decided to move on.

Half way into possibly the tenth game of drunk twister, and fifty "Haru" shots later (because the black-haired boy finally caved and rattled off about the water and the ocean and pools) everyone was quite reasonably wasted and Yousuke lost his ability to refrain from his secret addiction to bad pickup lines.  
"So, Makoto-kun, did it hurt?" he asked.  
"Huh?" the Iwatobi captain asked, drunk, bodily contorted and with a foot in the air.  
"When you fell from heaven, because you are an angel," Yousuke laughed to himself and took another swig of his beer as he watched Makoto, Seijuurou and Haru do the twister tango. He was on the spinner and was waiting for Seijuurou to move his left foot to a blue spot and take the shot.  
"Oh my god **shut up** 'Suke," Rei groaned from the far end of the room, waking from his drunken sleepiness.  
"You know what else is up, Mako-kun?" Yousuke asked.  
"**I swear to god 'Suke, if you say-**"  
"I have a little friend who's standing up real straight for you right now~" The older Ryuugazaki winked before cackling to himself as Makoto went cherry red in the face.  
"I want to rip my ears off," Rei moaned woefully, an audible thump as he his forehead against whatever it happened to be.  
"Right hand to green, Mako-kun~" Yousuke sang, ignoring his brother all together.  
The Iwatobi captain wordlessly moved as was directed, taking the beer shot on the mat and placing the plastic cup to the side, but in a sudden drunken epiphany, he turned to Yousuke and, giving the best sex eyes he could manage, he replied, "You know what else my right hand is good at?"  
Yousuke fainted after that one and with no spinner available, everyone sort of froze where they were, unsure of whether to end the game or get another spinner.

Seijuurou, on the other hand, was starting to feel a whole new level of irritated. _Mako-kun._ This lunatic, drunken flirt had known him for less than a couple hours and he was already at 'Mako-kun'. He, on the other hand, was still stuck at 'Tachibana'. He rolled his eyes and groaned at himself. _Pull yourself together Mikoshiba. _He carefully eyed Yousuke from his cramped reverse crab position underneath Makoto (not that he was complaining about that. They could be a little more cramped for all he cared). Were they hitting on each other?_ That's none of your business._ Still, he didn't like that idea. Why didn't he like that idea? _It's still none of your business,_ he reminded himself. _Of course it's not_. It's just the alcohol making him think weird things. _Yeah, that sounds about right._ But alcohol made liars speak truths didn't it? _Nope_, Seijuurou simply rejected the whole thing ever happened. _I'm going to forget this internal debate ever happened. _

He was too drunk to remember it anyway.


	4. 4: Pancakes Cure Hangovers

Rin was never a fan of getting up early despite it being in the job description of a swimmer, but someone was making pancakes. Even in his sleep, Rin _knew_ the smell of pancakes. One tired eye cracked open and he regretted the decision immediately. _Sunlight_. He'd never disliked it in his life, but now he hated it with the force of a thousand supernovas. He tried again, this time bearing the pain that shot through his head as he (painfully) wrenched his other eye open. He'd fallen asleep on the couch. _Of course he had_, although he didn't have much of a recollection of doing so. Last he remembered, he was watching TV from the floor. To add to his confusion, a blanket fell to the floor in a crumpled heap the way blankets normally do as he rolled over on the couch so that his back was facing the backrest. But it wasn't the crumpling of the blanket that confused him, or the odd butterfly pattern on it or even the fact that it smelled a little too strongly of mothballs. _How in the fuck did it get on him in the first place._ Rin knew for a fact that if he had been awake, drunk or not, he would have refused to touch the damn thing. Still, he was thankful for it nonetheless. The still morning air wasn't exactly warm, evidence enough for him to indicate a chilly night. He would've killed someone if he'd gotten a cold.

Well, he was already awake. May as well clean himself up while he was at it. He carefully climbed his way over the masses of bodies strewn over the floor (Seijuurou and Makoto were asleep on each other on the sleeping mat. Wait, was Seijuurou _spooning_ Makoto? Rin decided to forget he even saw that) as he made his way to the kitchen. Everyone appeared to be covered by a doona or blanket of some kind so at least the weird butterfly blanket wasn't the result of some weird-ass prank. He cleared his head of any weird or too thought-provoking ideas. His primary focus right now was food and he followed his nose to the kitchen where he found none other than Shun herself in not much more than a sports bra and boxer briefs making pancakes.  
"Christonacracker," was Rin's immediate response, which he discovered he also regretted because even talking was hurting his head.  
"Good morning Nyan Shark," Shun laughed as she flipped a pancake, grinning broadly in his general direction before going back to the task at hand. Grinning possibly too broadly for his likes.  
_What the fuck? _Rin thought to himself as stood stock still in shock. A (admittedly very attractive) young woman was standing in front of him in the bare minimum of clothes deemed appropriate for public show, and she just called him _fucking Nyan Shark_ and laughed at him. His unawareness to whatever the hell was going on had him red in the cheeks. That and her near-nakedness.  
Shun glanced over and laughed again. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you've never seen anyone in their knickers before," she joked, moving the pancake to the top of a heaped plate before taking the plate and walking to the dining table, ushering Rin along while she was at it. Her goddamn near-naked body was in very close proximity to him and he was slowly becoming more and more red in the face. And the fact that, no, he had not seen a _woman_ in her knickers before was not helping him in the least.  
"There's Aspirin on the table and there's a jug of orange juice too," Shun's voice cut into his thoughts. "I know you nutty sporty men like your breakfasts big but Chou-chan doesn't have that much in his little house for a whole group of you,"  
A moment later, Rin found himself seated at the table, a plate of pancakes piled high in front of him and a bottle of maple syrup set towards the side. Rin had a thing for pancakes. He fucking loved pancakes but today he was staring at them like he'd never seen them in his life.  
"Go on then, dig in," Shun urged him, watching him expectantly, "I've got more for the others, but don't go waking them up. It's still kinda early and they're all probably tired and grumpy," she said with a little smile before returning to finish cooking.

Rin found himself in a spot of confusion as he forked the warm, spongy cakes into his mouth. This crazy nut-job of a lady just suddenly turned up at training last night, seemed to be the most violently threatening person he'd ever come across in his life and yet he was here _blushing like a fifth grader over that cute girl in his class_. Was he crushing on her? _Oh god, that's so pathetic_, he groaned internally. It was probably one of those lust situations as opposed to the love at first sight bullshit. _Kinda like how you see a cute person pass on the streets_, he convinced himself. If anything, Shun might just be a temporary distraction. She lived in Osaka anyway, and wasn't she going to go back soon? Who knew when she might visit next. Who knew if she would visit at all. Hell, he hadn't even known her for a full day.

He hit his forehead on the table. Thing number three on the list of things to not do with a fucking hangover. It took Shun less than a minute to reappear with a wrapped ice pack.  
"Careful there Superman, Aspirin makes you invincible but it doesn't work immediately you know," she said, sitting herself down next to him and looking him sternly in the eye.  
The redhead visibly flinched at her glare, holding the ice pack to his head. "Uh… Did I do something?"  
"I don't know, did you?" Shun replied cryptically, before loosening up like she had never glared at him at all. "Actually, Nitori-kun woke up at some point in the early morning and asked to be sent back. I didn't have a problem with it, but I bumped into your teacher when I dropped him off at his room, and after I explained that I was Rei's legal guardian and I was looking after you guys as well. He kinda looked me in the eye and said you were a troublesome little shit and I needed to have a stern word with you. So that was me being stern, and this is me having a word with you."  
Rin blinked at her. If her plan was to tell him off, she probably wasn't going to right away.  
"Alternatively, I could've just said 'Talk shit, get hit', because apparently you're a lippy bastard, but hey, that doesn't matter," Shun shrugged before changing the topic completely. "Do you want tea?" she asked, not even bothering to wait for an answer before retreating back into the kitchen to fetch him a mug of exactly that. Then, without another word, she hopped back off to keep cooking and he found himself unable to do very much more than just watch her. Her tea worked better than any Asprin.

As Shun said, it was still considered early when Rin had woken up and he didn't want to begin to even think about how early Shun had gotten up to make enough pancakes to have easily fed ten people comfortably if he'd woken up at eight. Apparently she'd gone out to buy the ingredients in the morning as well and just the idea of voluntarily waking up that early made him lethargic.

It didn't seem like anyone would be waking up soon, so as soon as she'd finished making the pancakes, she popped them all on a tray and into the oven with the heat on low to keep them warm before going back to keep Rin company. Rin found that she wasn't nearly as confrontational as he'd imagined. A little (okay, a lot) eccentric, yes, but he supposed all his friends were that way anyway. She talked about a lot of things while Rin ate. She didn't indicate that she expected him to say anything, more that she was simply keeping him company and warding away the awkward silence that came with eating breakfast in a room of unconscious swimming nuts.

She talked about engines and motors and cars at first. As it turns out, she was studying mechanical engineering in university, but then she moved the conversation to other things, like space and nebulas and star clusters. She was "absolute shit" at science apparently, so she had no understanding of how they worked, but she loved how they looked and she apparently had terabytes worth of images saved off NASA's sites. He told her she was insane. She claimed that she was "just invested". Rin laughed at that. What an odd character.

She also talked about his sister. She thought Gou was a nice girl, apparently. She talked about how they hung out last night, how Gou looked up to him a lot to which he responded with a "tch, dumb kid". Somehow he had expected Shun to scold him. She seemed to care about family quite a lot after all, but she just laughed a little and said "siblings are like that, huh?".

Rin could feel himself being pulled into this one, but somehow he didn't seem to care that much. Even if they ended up as just friends, that sounded alright to him. He wouldn't mind having this positively insane, pancake making machine, car fanatic as a friend. He wouldn't mind that at all.

Everyone else woke up hours later as it neared noon, save for Makoto and Nagisa who seemed intent on sleeping through the day, and came to join in the pancake eating festivities. Well, except for Haru who insisted on eating mackerel. Shun told him he could "either eat your pancakes or go fishing for your damn trout or whatever. See if I care" as she angrily scrubbed at the pans and bowls.

They all had a good laugh at Rin though, since he hadn't noticed the whiskers and other cat-like decorations drawn onto his face while he was unconscious the night before. He shot Shun a nasty glare since she _must have_ seen it. Hell, they talked face to face for a full two or so hours, but she just sniggered in his general direction. _So that's what the whole Nyan Shark shit was about. Fucking sadistic asshole_, Rin decided, groaning in his head as he stormed to the bathroom to clean off the embarrassing markings.

Rei simply wanted to know where all the ingredients came from.  
"I evicted your dumbass brother from the house to fetch the ingredients after that stunt he pulled last night," she replied rather grumpily. "Honestly. I left for less than three hours and he managed to pass out before everyone else. Responsible adult my ass," she grumbled as the door swung open.  
"I am home, my lovelies!" Yousuke sang as he entered the building, hands full of grocery bags. There was a collective groan through the house at the noise, although the unconscious Makoto and Nagisa didn't even twitch at the racket.  
"Speak of the devil," Shun droned as she ferried yet another plate of pancakes over to the table. "Did you bring the cream cheese?" she asked, returning to the kitchen with her older cousin in tow.  
"Cream cheese?" Rei repeated, his head shooting up from his I-hate-this-goddamn-hangover position.  
"Eh?" Seijuurou cut in. "What's so special about cream cheese?"  
"My cousin makes the most exceptional cakes," Rei filled in, pushing his glasses further up his nose in the same manner that he always does. "My favourite of which is one of her secret recipes that she calls 'Butterfly Cake'. I don't know all the ingredients, but I'm aware that there is chocolate and she uses cream cheese in her frosting,"  
"Have you ever tried to, oh I don't know, watch her make it?" Rin asked, sarcasm laced thickly through his words.  
"Don't you remember what happened last night?" Rei asked back dryly. "She threw my brother, a twenty year old, six foot plus, seventy-something kilo guy** into the ocean**. What makes you think she's incapable of stopping me from watching her?"  
Rin considered the argument for a moment, turned to look Haru in the eye before returning his attention to Rei.

"_Challenge accepted._"


	5. 5: All Things Cake

Haru tried the first and most obvious tactic. He walked up to Shun as she was sifting the flour and peered over her shoulder.  
"What are you doing?" he asked casually.  
"Making a cake," she replied.  
"What kinda cake?" Haru asked, playing along.  
"Butterfly cake,"  
"Butterfly Cake?" he asked, "What's in that?" _This seemed to be going smoothly_.  
"One cup of plain flour, two sticks of butter, three cups of sugar," she began to list off ingredients.  
Haru had no idea what Rei was going on about. She was literally giving away the whole recipe!  
"four kilos of chocolate, five liters of milk,"  
_Wait. Four kilos?! __**Five liters?!  
**_"and six pinches of go fuck yourself. Off you go kiddo," she dismissed him nonchalantly, "unless you want all this down the drain instead of in the oven. I can warn you now, Chou-chan won't be happy about it."  
Haru skulked off unhappily, hands tucked in his pockets as he passed Rin who cackled with glee at his rival's loss.

Some time passed before Rin took a shot. He opted to sit near by the entrance to the kitchen and inconspicuously peer over and watch her. He figured with their newly founded friendship, she might be a little more lenient on him. So far she'd been careful to keep all the ingredients inside their opaque plastic shopping bags until they were needed, and even then, they were popped into the tall mixing bowl too fast for him to distinguish exactly what they were.

The boy thought that he was going unnoticed, but he was so wrong. No sooner than the thought had passed his mind, a ball of floury dough was pegged straight at his forehead, sending a small cloud of white powder everywhere. When Rin had recovered from the shock, he found a somewhat grumpy and taller-than-he'd-previously-believed Shun standing at his feet wielding an incredibly threatening spatula in hand.  
"Stop spying on me," was all she said, the very words ground out from behind her teeth. And with a final glare around the room, she returned to her work. Suddenly the prospect of being friends with her was a little scarier than he'd originally thought.

"I told you," Rei said, book in hand and appearing to not even give the slightest hint of a damn to which Rin crossed his arms grumpily about.  
"Shun can be pretty scary when she wants to be, y'know," Yousuke concurred, sitting down next to his brother and taking a peek at his book. He was wearing a loose and faded blue shirt with the same yellow board shorts as yesterday and his white vans. His hair was tied back in a terrible excuse of a pony hail, but what was most interesting were the red framed glasses perched upon his nose.  
Rei, of course, immediately noticed this. "Wh-Why are you wearing those?" he cried.  
"Because I want to see things, of course," Yousuke replied without batting an eye.  
"Yes, but why are they identical to mine?" Rei pursued, a small crease of frustration appearing on the bridge of his eyes.  
"They aren't _exactly_ the same," the older Ryuugazaki pointed to the bottom edges of his glasses where there were no frames. "See?"  
"No one's going to notice that!" Rei shot back with an aggravated noise of exasperation.  
"Eh? Don't be like that Chou-chan. Don't you want people to know where your good looks come from?" Yousuke teased.  
"I swear to god-," the younger brother started.  
"Now, now, let's not get too aggressive," Yousuke cut off him off with a laugh, patting him on the back.  
Rei simply buried his face further into his book and muttered something about not understanding beauty into the pages.

"Yousuke-san?" Haru had suddenly appeared beside the blue haired university student, looking very serious and a little solemn.  
"Haru-kun," Yousuke's expression changed a little, a frown mirroring Rei's earlier expression set into his normally happy face, "Is something the matter,"  
Haru was silent for a little while. "I wanted to know…"  
"Yes?"  
"Do you know the ingredients for Butterfly cake?"  
Yousuke blinked, then burst out in laughter. "Honey, that nutcase making that cake there made the school jock pee himself in the middle of a lecture because he tried to prank her," he said, "You think I'm going to risk myself for a recipe? Hell no,"  
Haru pressed his lips into a thin line in deep thought. A moment passed and he opened his mouth to try again when Shun reemerged from the kitchen, this time plopping herself down onto Yousuke's lap seeing as there were no other chairs available. Yousuke didn't seem to mind.

"Stop trying kid," she waved a spatula in his face, still heavily coated with the chocolatey cake mix before passing it onto a very excited looking Rei, "The cake's already in the oven and the bowl's about to be cleaned out by our resident vacuum cleaner here,"  
"Uh… who?" Seijuurou asked, pausing mid-text and glancing up from his phone. She certainly did have an acquired taste in nicknaming.  
"Chou-chan," Shun replied as Rei lifted a brow at her, though he didn't say anything as he licked the mix clean off the spatula. "He gets to clean the bowl and stuff whenever I make Butterfly cake,"  
"Oh…" was the short response from Seijuurou, then, "Do you mind if I try a bit?"  
"No."  
"Aww, c'mon Rei," Rin joined in. "Don't be a spoil sport,"  
"No."  
"Didn't Shun-san say there was still stuff in the bowl?" Haru piped up, "Can we have some of that?"  
Rei glared at him like he was about to have his first born child taken from him and Yousuke and Shun froze in their spots. This was not good. The others must've noticed the pair's sudden discomfort and they froze too, although they were far more fixated on figuring out how to get past Rei and to the mixing bowl the fastest as opposed to getting the hell out of there.  
"Uh… 'Suke and I promised to hang out with Kou…" Shun spoke up, awkwardly easing her way towards her and Yousuke's gym bags like she was just thrown into a den with a tiger.  
"Yeah… we're just gonna… leave… now," Yousuke added with equal awkwardness, inching his way to the door.  
"Rei-chan, you'll be around to take the cake out of the oven for us right?" Shun asked as she slowly joined her cousin by the door, passing him his bag.  
"Yeah." The words were ground out from the very back of Rei's throat, a borderline savage growl of warning.  
"OKAY WE'RE GOING TO GO. DON'T TEAR ANYONE APART," Yousuke called as he shoved his cousin out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

The loud bang of the door closing was practically the starting gun for the four boys to launch themselves into the kitchen. It was also loud enough to finally startle Makoto and Nagisa from their sleep. The sound of pots and pans clanging around in the kitchen and disgruntled noises of fury had the Iwatobi captain worried almost immediately and he ran in to find out what was happening, only to find Seijuurou standing in the far corner with an almost cleaned-out mixing bowl held high over his head. Being the tallest out of all of them, the redheaded captain had the bowl held out of reach of everyone else and happily helped himself to the leftover cake mix.

There was a cough. It wasn't the kind of cough you get after sitting in the sea for too long. No, it was the kind of cough you heard behind you after you realise someone's watching you do something you probably won't be proud of later; and that was exactly what was happening.  
The four boys froze, heads turning to meet eyes with the highly unimpressed Makoto Tachibana, hands crossed and eyebrow raised. He wasn't normally like this at all. In fact, there were very few things Makoto got angry about, and having his sleep disturbed was one of them.  
Nagisa stood by his side, head tilted curiously at the scene. "What're you guys doin'?" he asked.  
No one answered, but when Makoto coughed again, this time indicating he was expecting and answer, Rin, Rei and Haru parted and pointed at Seijuurou who had chocolate cake mix smeared over his chin and lips.  
Makoto had to resist the urge to double over in a fit of laughter. The sight was absolutely hilarious, but he retained his composure. Barely.  
Seijuurou went red as a tomato and smiled awkwardly in an attempt to neutralise the incoming anger. "Uh… Good morning?"  
It didn't help Makoto's attempts to remain angry. In fact, it dissipated all his anger completely and he couldn't help but giggle.  
"Sei-chan looks kinda funny, huh?" Nagisa said, laughing along and bouncing up to Rei who was still in a sulky mood. He had intended to set the angry Makoto on Seijuurou and reclaim the mixing bowl (which was rightfully his, he'd like to add) in the chaos. It evidently didn't go as planned and he slinked out of the kitchen and into the living room where Nagisa followed him as Rin and Haru skulked off elsewhere.

"So, I see you're being a mature and responsible adult," Makoto teased, grabbing a couple tissues from the box on the bench as he walked up to Seijuurou. "Here," he offered, holding out the tissues, "you've got stuff sort of…" he gestured to the general area around his chin.  
"Uh, yeah… Thanks," Seijuurou replied, still tomato red, taking the tissues and wiping away furiously. _How embarrassing._ "Sorry about waking you and stuff…"  
"That's alright." Makoto scratched the back of his neck and dropped his line of sight down to his feet. It was odd, being alone with Seijuurou. It made him funny in the stomach, tingly in his back and made him want to curl his toes all the time. Nervousness, that's what it was, but why? He made eye contact with Seijuurou again. The Samezuka captain was attractive, there was no lie there, _but that one smudge of chocolate just under his chin was starting to distract him._ Seijuurou wasn't any good at cleaning himself up either, with half cleaned smears and spots left all over his face, and Makoto's brotherly instincts were kicking in.  
"Uh, you missed a bit there," he pointed to the right side of his chin.  
Seijurou made a badly aimed swipe in the general direction.  
"And on the other side too,"  
Another failed attempt.  
"Um… you missed,"  
Seijuurou blinked and paused, what redness he had hoped to have disappeared from his cheeks was surely returning as he brace himself for what he was about to say. "Could you just… uh… help me?"  
Makoto's flaming cheeks were putting the rival captain on a run for his money. "S-sure,"  
He picked up another tissue, a clean one from the box, wetted it with a little water and set to work.

He tried to be gentle, for reasons unknown to him. He knew full well that without enough pressure, the sticky cake mix would not be cleaned, and yet he couldn't bring himself to press firmly down. Seijuurou was getting red in the face. Was it because of him? Was he making him uncomfortable? He pressed down a little on one of the thicker smears and Seijuurou looked away in the other direction. There was another smear just under his lip. The hairs stood up on Makoto's neck. _Just move on to another one,_ he told himself. He cleaned the little spots on his cheek and smiled as he wondered how they got there. He cupped his face and tilted from side to side to check for anything he could have missed. Nope. All squeaky clean.

_Except for the one under his lip._

Makoto groaned internally. There was nothing wrong with helping clean up another guy, right? He got another tissue, wetted it and raised it to Seijuurou's lips, wiping delicately under them where the cake mix decided to fix itself. He's done this countless times for his siblings, so why was he a nervous wreck now?  
"Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're scared of breaking me or something," Seijuurou piped up, causing Makoto to jump. The third-year just grinned. "I'm not made of glass y'know. A little scrubbing won't hurt me,"  
"R-right,"

_Cute. Absolutely adorable_, was what Seijuurou was thinking. He was being so gentle with him; it was odd, but he liked it. He didn't know why he said what he did, but did that even matter? He sighed. He wouldn't mind getting used to this.

"Ne, Rei-chan, why do you look so glum?" Nagisa asked, squishing up beside him.  
Rei wouldn't answer, simply laying down the book he'd pretended to read. It was a childish thing to have fought over and now he felt incredibly embarrassed.  
Nagisa only smiled kindly at his silence. "It's the cake right?" he asked.  
"Yeah," the blue haired boy admitted after a short while. "It was pretty dumb, huh?"  
Nagisa chuckled at him. "I've got three older sisters. Trust me, I've seen them fight more over a lot less," he grinned.  
Rei tried to return the gesture, but failed somewhat.  
The blonde first-year frowned. Rei was rather difficult to sway today.  
"Wait here," he said, then bounced back off to the kitchen.  
Rei sighed and dropped his head when Nagisa disappeared. Sulking was not beautiful. It was immature and pathetic and inefficient; almost everything he hated in this world and yet here he was, sulking over_ licking the bowl_. Perhaps if it'd been one of Shun's cheesecakes or her muffins he would have let it slide without much thought, but it was _Butterfly Cake_. Shun had practically invented it for Rei back in elementary school when they still met up every Christmas so of course he was possessive over it, but even that was a childish thing to do.  
There was some commotion in the kitchen, probably Nagisa wanting to try the cake mix and Rei just sighed a little more. If Nagisa got his hands on it there would surely be none left. But why was he so protective over the stupid bowl? He banged his head on the table and groaned. _Stupid_.

There was a cough. "Uh, hey," came Seijuurou's voice from near by.  
Rei found himself glaring holes into the table. "What." he demanded, the very words grating against his teeth on their way out.  
"I, uh-, um-,"  
Rei's glare travelled upwards to meet eyes with the Samezuka captain. He was surprised to find both Makoto and Nagisa watching the redhead expectantly, the latter looking a little angrier than he normally would, but the observation didn't affect his mood in the slightest. "_What._"  
The redhead set the mixing bowl on the table, eyes averted elsewhere as he hastily shoved his hands in his pockets. "Sorry about taking the bowl from you and stuff…"  
Rei just glared at him a little more before snatching up the bowl and turning the other way with it in his tight grasp, finally being able to wipe his finger across the inside of the metal bowl and lick the cake mix off his finger. A tiny, pleasant smile graced his face for the first time in a while and he hummed to himself happily. This, of course, didn't go unnoticed by Nagisa who gleefully pounced on the taller boy, swinging his arms around his neck and giggling incoherently. Rei immediately made an attempt to fend him off, but gave up after a brief moment of consideration. The blonde first-year was the equivalent of a human koala when he wanted to be so Rei simply continued to clean off whatever remained of the cake mix.

Makoto sighed and tilted his head at the sight. Nagisa and Rei had definitely made some kind of a bond, somewhat like the one he and Haru shared. It was sweet to see it shared between others. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed again, "Being a captain is a little like being a parent sometimes, huh?"  
Seijuurou blinked back. "Uh… I suppose, but if today was any indication of anything, I'd say I'd be a pretty shit parent," he replied honestly. "I'd probably be buried neck deep in restraining orders and child custody issues,"  
Makoto just laughed, "You're not that bad," he said, nudging him in the side softly with his elbow.  
Seijuurou laughed back a little, feigning injury to his side to which Makoto simply smiled. That dumb, tiny upwards curl of his lips with those stupid dopey eyes that turned into happy, droopy curves, Seijuurou desperately wished it didn't appeal to him as much as it did.

"Say, Mako-chan," Nagisa piped up, "how come you and Sei-chan were being all cuddly last night?"  
Both captains seemed to jump at the question, immediately putting a good two feet of space between them.  
Nagisa tilted his head curiously and Rei turned his head to raise an eyebrow at the lack of a response. "Hmm… Did something happen between you?"

"**Not at all!"**

* * *

A/N: Thanks for all the support guys! Friendly reminder to please comment because I'd love to hear some feedback! Also I written a little more SeiMako in the next chapter. (*giggles childishly* oh my god i ship them so hard.) Also Rin may or may not have a little crush on someone. … It was an accident I swear.


	6. 6: Casting the Die

Seijuurou was a mix of embarrassment and general uncomfortableness. Makoto was near panic. Why had they been all cuddly last night? Lists of excuses and explanations ran through both their minds, and while they were unaware of this, they both agreed that the truth was that in their drunkenness and with the whole concept of personal space out the window, it just felt _nice_. Not that they could say that though. Not that they _would_.

That being said, there was nothing particularly fantastic about the tale. After Yousuke passed out, everyone just gave into their tiredness.

* * *

"Right hand to green, Mako-kun~" Yousuke sang, ignoring his brother all together.  
The Iwatobi captain wordlessly moved as was directed, taking the beer shot on the mat and placing the plastic cup to the side, but in a sudden drunken epiphany, he turned to Yousuke and, giving the best sex eyes he could manage, he replied, "You know what else my right hand is good at?"  
Yousuke fainted after that one and with no spinner available, everyone sort of froze where they were, unsure of whether to end the game or get another spinner.

Seijuurou, on the other hand, was starting to feel a whole new level of irritated. _Mako-kun._ This lunatic, drunken flirt had known him for less than a couple hours and he was already at 'Mako-kun'. He, on the other hand, was still stuck at 'Tachibana'. He rolled his eyes and groaned at himself. _Pull yourself together Mikoshiba. _He carefully eyed Yousuke from his cramped reverse crab position underneath Makoto (not that he was complaining about that. They could be a little more cramped for all he cared). Were they hitting on each other?_ That's none of your business._ Still, he didn't like that idea. Why didn't he like that idea? _It's still none of your business,_ he reminded himself. _Of course it's not_. It's just the alcohol making him think weird things. _Yeah, that sounds about right._ But alcohol made liars speak truths, didn't it? _Nope_, Seijuurou simply rejected the whole thing ever happened. _I'm going to forget this internal debate ever happened._

He slapped himself back into the present where they still had no spinner and Rin still had his butt pressed into his face. Yousuke was still out cold. _Perfect. _"OI MATSUOKA. GET YOUR ASS OUTTA MY FACE. GAME OVER, SON."  
Rin glared back at him. "NO. I _WILL_ FUCKING WIN. HARU," he called for his friend who was lazing around, face down, next to the spinner, "SPIN THE THING."  
There was no response.  
"OI DOLPHIN FACE,"  
Still no response.  
Makoto laughed. "I think he's asleep, Rin-chan,"  
The redhead glared at him too. "Fine! I'll just spin the thing myself!" he declared as he made an attempt to reach over and spin the dial. He was about to do it. In fact he was so close he could've spun it already, but Haru made the last minute decision to roll over in his sleep and onto the spinner, grabbing Rin's arms and pulling on it like a child would a teddy bear, effectively sabotaging the game. Rin went down, so did Seijuurou and Makoto (landing quite comfortably on each other). In the face of defeat, Rin went to storm off angrily but stubbed his toe on the leg of the coffee table, causing him to keel over and release a colourful spew of explicatives. Seijuurou and Makoto all but jumped from each other, much to the amusement of Nagisa.

"Rei-chan!" the blonde chirped, bouncing up to the sluggish-looking boy.  
He sighed, "Yes, Nagisa?"  
"I wanna play a game!"  
Rei slumped to one side of his chair. "Another one?"  
"Let's play the dice game that we played on the island!"  
Rei shot him a short glare but didn't have the energy to refuse, "Only if my name isn't written down three times,"  
Nagisa beamed happily at him and pulled a cardboard die seemingly out of thin air, names of all the party members marked on it already.  
Rei's eyebrow twitched. _How did he do that?_

Not very much longer, everyone was sat around the twister mat with the die sitting in the centre, Haru's name facing upwards. Nagisa hummed to himself, "Haru-chan, would you rather kiss Shun-chan or You-chan?"  
"Eh… Nagisa, Haru's still asleep," Rei said, taking his red glasses and setting them down on the table nearby. He was starting to feel incredibly tired but he just told himself that this would be the last game tonight. It was a rather calm game after all, it would be a nice way to wind down.  
"Doesn't matter!" Nagisa whined, pressing himself against Rei. "Haru-chan, I wanna know!" his drunken whining increased.  
Haru just rolled over in his sleep.  
"Why don't you just ask someone else Nagisa?" Makoto asked.  
"No! I want Haru-chan to answer me," he said, rolling back and forth on the ground.  
Rei decided to just pass the die on to to Rin who was to the other side of Nagisa (then Makoto, Seijuurou, and the ever unconscious Yousuke who was apparently too heavy to move and thus was included in the circle). With a scoff and an eye roll, the redhead threw the die… and landed on his own name.  
He groaned. "Fuck this shit. Where was this dumb ass game conceived anyway?"  
"We were stuck on a deserted island in the middle of the night!" Nagisa replied cheerily before Rei could stop him.  
"A deserted island? What the heck were you doing there in the first place?" Rin asked.  
Makoto physically tensed at the question. Haru was sleeping right now and no amount of yelling seemed to be able to wake him up and with Rin being as probing as he is, there was no way of escaping an explanation.  
"Uh- Funny story actually," Rei's mouth immediately set into action, pumping out random syllables in the hope that they would create a believable cover-up, "we thought it would be fun to explore the buildi-"  
"That's not true Rei-chan!" Nagisa immediately protested.  
The sounds the bespeckled boy made were the clearest indication of a lie gone wrong if Rin had ever seen one. "Y-Yes it is!"  
"But keeping secrets isn't nice Rei-chan!" Nagisa whined. "Lying isn't _beautiful!_"  
Rei almost choked on nothing. "E-Exceptions can be made! P-Plus, lying is considered an art by m-many people!"  
Nagisa just shot him a dirty look before continuing. "**_Anyway_**, Rei-chan went swimming out in the ocean at night when we were on our training camp and a storm picked up. Mako-chan went to save him but then I guess he got scared and _he_ started drowning so Haru-chan had to save him and I got Rei-chan," Nagisa blurted out in all but a single breath.  
Makoto sighed and dropped his head at the story. He'd always thought of himself as pathetic since that night, regardless of anything anyone said to him afterwards. Seijuurou was quick to notice the shift in mood but said nothing. He thought it was odd though. A swimmer who was scared of the ocean? It made no sense to him. He knew he didn't know any better though, so he shooed away his judgements.  
Rin, meanwhile, took a moment to process it, but his anger set in quickly, and it set in _hot_. "You," he pointed an accusing finger at Rei who whimpered in reply. Apparently alcohol allowed him to become frightened a whole lot easier than he normally would (not that an angry shark person wouldn't scare you anyway). "You are a **total fucking idiot!** You went out swimming in a storm _at night _**_in the ocean?_** Are you freaking suicidal or just really fucking stupid?"  
Rei had already begun to sob at this point, his sensitivity heightened by his drunkenness.  
"_Why would you even-_" Rin had to stop and groan loudly out of pure frustration, slamming his palms down on the floor, crushing the cardboard die that was unfortunately nearby. He was fully aware of the fact that Seijuurou was here, and even if it was just Yousuke being unconscious he was uncomfortable talking about sensitive things with strangers around. He raked his fingers through his red hair before launching himself at Rei, straddling the blue-haired boy at the torso and grabbing him by the shoulders, ready to hurt the little dipshit.

Meanwhile, Seijuurou noticed that Makoto had gone quiet. Given, the boy wasn't the loud type, but this was way too quiet. He tilted his head to get a better look and found the boy head down, eyes squeezed shut and hands in this lap in fists balled so tight he worried that the white knuckles might just give out. He wanted to help, but how? He didn't want to kick up a fuss about it, and in his somewhat fuzzy, drunken conclusions, he figured Makoto probably didn't really want to make a scene either. Therefore (he liked using that word. It made him feel like he paid attention in class), he couldn't take Makoto outside and he couldn't tell the others to shut up. So the next logical thing to do, or perhaps it wasn't logical at all, was to grab him by the hand, wriggle his fingers through Makoto's tight fist so that their fingers were laced and give a small squeeze.  
His head spun in Seijuurou's direction so fast, the Samezuka captain thought it was going to fall off, but after a moment of realisation, Makoto just gave him that awkward, droopy smile that he always does, despite it looking a little glum this time. So Seijuurou smiled back and they said nothing.

Rin wasn't fully aware at the time what he actually physically intended to do to, but he was glad that Nagisa had wrestled him off and held him back or he would've done something regrettable for sure. He huffed at angrily at Rei, whose wailing had died back down to the occasional whimper, and he crossed his arms with a harrumph.  
"Okay, Rin-chan, your turn!" Nagisa returned to his usual cheer.  
"What the hell do you mean, the box is a fucking pancake," Rin shot back rather nastily in his still-foul mood.  
Nagisa pointed at the flattened cube near by them with Rin's name facing upwards. "It's got your name on top so it's your turn!"  
Rin shot him a glare. It wasn't particularly malicious, or angry (not for Rin at least), but more towards the feeling of suspicion.  
Nagisa hummed to himself in thought, "Rin-Rin, do you like Shun-chan?"  
Everyone else's eyes seemed to fall out of their heads. **"What?!"  
**Rin himself had said nothing, instead going stiff in the back. "W-What kind of a stupid fucking question is that?!"  
"It is a question, Rin-Rin!" Nagisa shot back. "I saw you looking at her on the train! Answer me!"  
Rin's face went the same deep red shade of his hair. "NO I WAS NOT YOU LIL' SHOTA BITCH!"  
"BLUSHING! BLUSHING!" Nagisa proclaimed in a giddy screech. It seemed the alcohol was still in full effect. "RIN-CHAN IS BLUSHING!"  
"I'M FUCKING NOT!"  
Seijuurou just laughed loudly at his teammate's predicament. "Oh come on, Matsuoka. The whole freaking team was eyeing her! They were all going to come along if I didn't promise to give them her number!"  
Rei seemed to suddenly turn very solemn. "I wish you good health, Rin-chan-san,"  
"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!"  
"I also wish you luck," Rei continued as if Rin had never said anything. "My cousin is not an easy woman to deal with,"  
"GOD-FUCKING-DAMN, I'M NOT DEALING WITH THIS BULLSHIT," Rin hollered, picking up the flattened cardboard die and pegging it at Rei.  
It wasn't a particularly heavy hit but the blue-haired boy fell backwards and seemed to fall asleep the instant his head made contact with the ground, a light snore and a snort sounding as he did.  
Nagisa's head whipped in Rin's direction, eyes filled with angry tears. "RIN-CHAN, WHY DO YOU KEEP HURTING REI-CHAN?"  
Nagisa was never someone to mess with when he was angry and Rin backed up almost immediately in fear. In spite of his earlier "shota" remark, Nagisa was anything but. Nagisa was _terrifying_.  
Rin laughed nervously. "Ah- well-,"  
"RIN-CHAN, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE!" And with that, Nagisa transformed into a tiny ball of fury, launching himself at Rin and shaking him by the shoulders violently. It wasn't very long before the alcohol with the dizziness that came with being shaken caused him to black out. It took Nagisa a while to work out he was shaking a limp body but when he did, he simply let Rin fall to the ground before returning to the circle. Apparently Seijuurou and Makoto had fallen asleep on each other as well.  
"Whaaat?" Nagisa complained. "You guys are really boring!" he whined as he turned his attention back to Rei. "Rei-chan! Wake up and play with me!" he demanded.  
He, of course, received no reaction but continued to harass him until he eventually grew tired of it as well and passed out on top of him, his hands still hanging onto Rei's shirt.

As soon as the light snores started coming from Nagisa, the two captains stirred from their "sleep". It had been Seijuurou's idea to fake their sleep. He had wanted to avoid any questions that Nagisa could've had for him, and he guessed Makoto had wanted to as well. The Iwatobi captain had been trembling in his hand the whole way through the night so when Nagisa and Rin were wrestling each other, so Seijuurou surreptitiously told Makoto to pretend to fall asleep on him.  
Makoto didn't protest, simply curling up beside Seijuurou when the both of them had lain down. Normally it would have been Haru who would comfort him. Haru knew what had gone on and they shared a bond that had been there for years. He trusted Haru with his thoughts. He trusted Haru to stabilize him, but Haru was not here and he was grappling for any kind of a hold. When Seijuurou offered his hand, Makoto had taken it without a second thought.

Seijuurou was slowly getting back up, doing a silent check that everyone else was asleep as Makoto got himself into a relatively upright position as well. He still looked like he about to cry so Seijuurou, hand still held with Makoto's, propped himself up against one of Rei's many bookshelves and beckoned him closer. Makoto yielded without much hesitation and was pleasantly surprised to have the older man pull him in and wrap his free hand around his shoulder.  
He supposed it felt a little odd to be comforted this way. Haru often expressed comfort through his words and it was quite clear that Seijuurou did things a little differently, but different wasn't bad. He kind of liked it. He felt a bit of a secure net in Haru's words, but being held lightly in Seijuurou's arms brought a more immediate feeling of safety. They were like barriers, big walls that deflected whole armies, and with his face turned into the shoulder of Seijuurou's red t-shirt, it was like nothing else existed at all.  
It was then that Seijuurou felt Makoto stop trembling for the first time that night. He was curious, but he bit his tongue, waiting a little longer before he'd ask about it.

Surprisingly, it was Makoto who spoke first, his voice barely more than a murmur into the thin fabric of redhead's shirt. "I'm sorry. I must be so annoying right now," he said, squeezing Seijuurou's hand a little.  
Seijuurou just squeezed back with both his hand and the arm around Makoto's shoulders. "It's no biggie, Tachibana."  
He felt the Iwatobi captain smile into the fabric of his shirt and so he smiled too, to no one in particular.  
"You can talk to me about… stuff… if you want…" Seijuurou brought up, rather vaguely. "I mean we'll forget in the morning, right?"  
Makoto's head shifted so that his face was no longer turned into Seijuurou's shoulder and rested his cheek on top instead. "I think I'll be okay… I'm probably the emotional kind of drunk, anyway,"  
Seijuurou laughed light-heartedly. "It's not that bad,"  
A moment of silence settled between them.  
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it back up," he apologised. "You can just… y'know… hold my hand and stuff for as long as you want. I don't mind,"  
Makoto responded with a quiet "mm" of an affirmative and nodded his head against Seijuurou's shoulder.

For some reason, he was becoming more and more sensitive and Seijuurou's offer seemed to have set the gears into work as he began tearing up. He tried to keep it down, but in a silent room with the only other conscious person only inches from his face, it was pretty difficult to avoid detection.  
Seijuurou, on the other hand, didn't realise until his shoulder started feeling wet, after which he practically jumped a foot in the air. "Ah! No crying, Tachibana! No crying!" he said in a mad panic, almost certain that he'd just destroyed all his efforts with one question. "Think happy thoughts!"  
Makoto shook his head, wiping his tears on his shoulders because some part of him refused to let go of Seijuurou's hands. "I'm happy! I'm happy!" he insisted, still tearing but smiling through it as best he could.  
Seijuurou heaved a sigh of relief, falling back onto the shelf. "God, don't make me worry like that," he muttered, roughly pulling him back into a hug and going pink-cheeked. "You're right. You _are_ an emotional drunk,"  
Makoto chuckled as he was hugged, although this time his head was rested against Seijuurou's chest as they faced the same way, looking out at the mess of unconscious high school students, half eaten food and drained bottles and cans of beer.

"Thank you, Mikoshiba-senpai," Makoto said quietly, "and please just call me Makoto," he added as an after thought.  
"Then I expect to be called Seijuurou," was the immediate response. "No more of this Mikoshiba-senpai business. You sound too much like Nitori and it's starting to creep me out."

Seijuurou thought it was really nice to hear Makoto laugh then.

They talked a little more, Makoto at some point realising the intimacy of their positions and saying something about feeling embarrassed but didn't move to do anything about it.  
Seijuurou laughed a little and ruffled his hair.  
His laughter was like distant thunder in Makoto's ear. A soft rumble that echoed through his lungs and his chest. He quite liked it.

At some point Seijuurou declared that sitting up was hurting his neck, and the two promptly transferred their positions to the ground. It was a little weird and a little foreign, and while they were unaware of this, they both agreed that the truth was, that in their drunkenness and with the whole concept of personal space out the window, it just felt _nice._

* * *

"We were cold," was the excuse provided by both captains simultaneously.  
No one was buying it, but they let it slide for now.

They lazed around for the rest of the afternoon, helping Rei clean up his apartment while they were at it. Rin received a few photos and videos from Gou throughout the day of her, Yousuke, and Shun, which he mainly ignored. Nagisa then took it upon himself to reply for Rin, sending his own photos and videos. Shun called Rei at some point to tell him to check on the cake and let her know how much it had risen since she forgot to set a timer for him. She'd been making it for so long she went off pure instinct when it came to it now.

Rei reported back and was then given the go-ahead to take the cake out. He was then instructed to let it sit for about ten minutes before it was allowed to be served.  
"Make sure you put on the icing! I left it in the fridge in a bowl and there's some whipped cream too so serve it with that while it's warm!" she told him before hanging up, the sound of Gou pestering her to do something or other in the background, and Yousuke laughing heartily (or maniacally) some distance away.

So far (according to the photos Rin got), they'd been to about ten different eateries. Rin muttered something about how there wasn't even a chance on earth that they could've been actual athletes with all the fatty foods they were eating, but Rei retorted that they were probably just packing on weight that they would convert to muscle later. He also added that Yousuke was notably a lot larger than most people and the fact that he was involved in sports as well meant he all but inhaled his food when it came to it. Rin just told him to shut the hell up at that point.

For Rei, it was an incredibly long ten minutes, but he waited it out (down to the exact second) before he slathered on the icing messily and cut into it, serving himself a particularly large piece. He chose to notify the others to help themselves after he'd taken a large bite out of it.

Shun had a special talent for cake. Somehow she managed to make thick, gooey centres that tickled the back of your throat and yet create a skin around the outside that was crisp and melted at the very touch of your lips. She also had a tendency to keep the sugar down on the icing which was why she chose to use cream cheese frosting more often as opposed to the standard buttercream or royal icing. Rei thought the richness of the cake and the subtle flavours of the cream cheese mixed _beautifully_. He'd missed this over the last two years.

The cake didn't stand a chance against the six boys and the speed that they'd eaten it at promptly sent them into a food coma. It wasn't until near sunset that any of them woke up, Rin being the earliest riser (again). He'd been disturbed by the sound of his phone ringing.  
"What," he answered in a foul tone.  
"Whoa there, Sharkie," answered someone who definitely should not have his number.  
"How the hell did you get my number," he snarled into the receiver.  
"I have my ways kiddo. Look, that's not important right now," they went on. "I'm going need you to kick Rei in the butt and ask him if he has a ladder that goes about ten metres up,"  
Rin groaned. "Oi! Ryuugazaki!" he yelled across the room to stir the boy. He was successful.  
"What is it Rin?" Rei asked, fixing his glasses back as everyone else started waking up from all the commotion..  
"Phonecall," was all he got as the phone was tossed to him.

"Yes?" Rei answered tentatively. "Oh, Nii-san,"  
There was a short pause.  
"Hang on, she what?"


	7. 7: Idiots

_"Yes?" Rei answered tentatively. "Oh, Nii-san,"  
__There was a short pause.  
__"Hang on, she what?"_

* * *

And thus began the expedition to the beach, making a short detour to Makoto's place to pick up a ladder and rope. Rei wouldn't say why, although he looked quite grumpy about the whole situation. Out of general curiosity, everyone else came along.

Twenty minutes later, everyone was standing on the sand and gathered at the bottom of a rather tall electrical pole, looking up to where Shun was sitting on the highest rung.  
"How did she get up there anyway?" Rin asked, his eye twitching in disbelief at the lowest peg which sat about eight metres off the ground, then up to Shun (dressed in just her two piece swimming gear) who looked to be rather comfortably standing near the top with both her feet fixed securely on a peg each and her right hand gripped tightly on another. She appeared to be preoccupied, however, as her head was stooped over into her left arm which appeared to be cradling something. "Actually, here's a better question: _Why_ is she up there?"  
"She saw a kitten stuck up there," Yousuke explained with a sigh as Makoto extended the ladder and set it up at the base of the pole. "Next thing you know, she's stuck up there with it. As to _how_ she got up there, I have no clue. One moment she's right next to me, the next, she's hanging from the bottom rung of the pole and complaining about splinters," he shrugged as if it was a common occurrence. Apparently, she'd done a run-up from an elevated wall nearby and became a parkour specialist for about thirty seconds.  
"Fucking bat-shit insane lady," was all Rin said in response as Makoto set up his ladder at the base. How _were_ you supposed to respond to that anyway?  
Surprisingly, all Yousuke responded with was "Tell me about it."

Unfortunately for the impromptu heroine, the ladder didn't stretch the full length. Reaching six meters up, it left about two additional meters to be desired.  
"Someone's going to have to go up and pass her a rope," Rei observed. "That way, she can lower herself onto the ladder and climb down,"  
"They're going to have to be tall and light," Yousuke added. "I noticed that the ladder says it had a maximum weight of 140kg. Since we're all sports people, we're all packed with muscle so we're going to be pushing the weight capacity of the ladder. Shun weighs around 65 kilos so that leaves us a 75 kilo space and you typically want to leave about five to ten kilos leeway in case the ladder's old or something so preferably someone around 65 kilos as well,"  
Rei blinked at his brother. "Since when were you all analytical and stuff?"  
Yousuke just shot him a glare. "It runs in the fucking family, okay. You can't just miss a genetic trait like that," he grumbled. The older Ryuugazaki was never a fan of over-analysing things. But growing up in an academic family, there were just some habits that were too far ingrained to simply shake off.  
Rei just "tch"ed. "In any case, it'll either be Haru or Rin who has to go up. They both have the height and weigh less than 70 kilos. Nagisa or Gou would be perfect since they both weigh probably less than 67 kilos, but they lack the height required."  
Yousuke blinked in surprise. "Why can't you go? You've got the height and you're about 65 kilos,"  
"I'm not saving her stupid butt," was the surprisingly short and childish reply as he crossed his arms and turned the other way. "Plus, standing up there and waving a rope at her and hoping she'll catch it whilst trying to retain my own balance will be spectacularly inbeautiful,"  
"Bad grammar and making up words is also "inbeautiful"," Yousuke scoffed. "I believe the word you're after is unbeautiful,"  
"So is anyone going to actually help me or am I just going to keep chilling up here?" Shun called down from the bottom of the rung hand/footholds, now with two hands holding the pegs and the little kitten balanced carefully on her shoulder.  
She was promptly ignored.

"What about Haru?" Rei offered. "He's only two centimeters shorter than me and he's the lightest option,"  
"There may be a slight issue with that plan of attack, darling," Yousuke said, pointing towards the ocean where Haru was already swimming with Makoto pulling his pant legs up as far as he could get them to go, attempting to wade in to retrieve his friend.  
Rei sighed. "I should have guessed,"  
Yousuke just shrugged. "Well, I'm definitely out of the equation because I was weighing in at about 79 kilos last I checked and I'm assuming Seijuurou is around 75 as well so that leaves…"  
All eyes set on Rin.  
"Are you fucking serious?" he squinted his eyes angrily at them. "Are you actually fucking serious?"  
Yousuke sighed, holding out the rope. "Just go. It's getting late and she didn't dry off before she went up so she's probably got a cold by now,"  
Rin just glared at them for a moment before snatching rope from his hand and stomping his way up the ladder, muttering colourful expletives the whole way up.

The climb was relatively short but Rin somehow gave himself many things to think about, like _why the fuck does it have to be me?_ and _what if she falls?_ and _what if _**_I_**_ fall?_ None of these thoughts were out of the ordinary, of course, but it didn't help to settle his uneasiness at all.  
"Be careful, Nii-san!" Gou called up at him from the base of the ladder where Seijuurou and Yousuke were holding it steady.  
"Yeah Rin-chan-san," Shun mimicked from where she was now hanging single-handedly from the lowest peg, the kitten currently sitting and mewling unhappily on the same peg that she was hanging from. "Be careful~"  
"HE TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT?" He yelled up at her incredulously as he reached the highest rung that he felt comfortable standing on. He didn't say anything about it, but he wasn't happy about her hanging so carelessly. **_You_**_ be careful, idiot_.  
"Sure he did, now toss me that rope," she said, left hand extended towards him, ready receive the package.

Remember how earlier Yousuke mentioned something about Shun complaining about splinters? Well, up to now everyone, including Rin, took it as a joke. Even Yousuke wasn't completely serious in the matter. Rin had imagined maybe a couple small ones here and there, not a fucking gash big enough to fit a pen cap. At the very least it seemed to have stopped bleeding.  
Shun must've noticed because she broke him out of his trance with "Your concern is touching and all, Nyan Shark," _Ugh, that fucking nickname from earlier._ He'd hoped she'd forgotten it by now, "but I could really do with getting down pretty soon,"  
"Yeah, whatever" he replied indifferently, tossing it up.  
She caught it with her left hand just fine and secured the rope quickly, all the while reassuring the grey speckled, white kitten who stopped its whining and appeared to be much less distressed now that her attentioned had returned to him.  
Originally, Rin had been looking up to keep an eye on Shun and make sure she didn't do anything stupid or lose her footing somewhere (not that he had a plan of exactly what to do if she did) but after a while he was surprised to find himself (but will never admit to being) completely transfixed on her wagging buttocks and she wiggled around to fix the rope on the peg. She had (unsurprisingly) toned calves and thighs and while she wasn't the slimmest girl he'd ever seen in a two-piece, she had one of the finest bodies to be in one. Or he thought so at least.  
He mentally shook himself. What in the hell was he thinking? This was _Shun_. The older cousin of Ryuugazaki Rei. Like, four years older than he was. And she was a bit of a bitch to boot. A good cook, but still a bitch.  
Well… she was selectively nice.  
Rin almost slapped himself. He was doing the stupid monologue thing again.  
"So uh, are you going to move down or something?" Shun's voice came from further up. In the time he'd distracted himself with his own thoughts, Shun had created some method of lowering herself and the kitten with just one hand and was very close to being able to stand on a rung. "Actually, don't. Here," she said passing him the kitten with her left (injured) hand. "Let him sit in your jacket," she instructed him and Rin fumbled around with the purring ball of fluff as instructed. "Good. Now, move your ass,"

The excitement was all over and done with relatively soon and with both Rin and Shun planted firmly on solid earth, the latter fawning over the saved kitten who seemed to refuse to her command of "Be free my child! Be free like the wind!".  
With Haru finally having been coaxed out of the ocean water by a very tired looking Makoto, everyone was assembled once more.  
"Well… Rin and I should probably be getting back to Samezuka," Seijuurou spoke up after a short while of casual merriness. "The team's still got an on-land training routine to do on weekend evenings so I've got to be there for that,"  
Shun finally tore her attention away from the kitten. "I can drive you two if you want. Makoto, too, since he's got a ladder with him,"

They'd originally planned to drop Makoto off at his place with his ladder, but he quickly made the excuse of wanting to spy on their training. Shun had the inkling of an idea that that wasn't the case, but said nothing more of it. Just another person to show her 'beauty' off to, then they dropped by Rei's to unload the trailer. There was some unusually high traffic due to a road block of some sort, but as soon as they got out of the town square, Shun just took off.

And thus, Makoto found himself gripping the passenger seat in Shun's noisy mustang for dear life as she tore down the countryside road to Samezuka. Seijuurou appeared to be enjoying himself, but Rin looked a little greener than usual. The kitten (named Spot after Data's cat from Star Trek) didn't seem to mind though. The trip that would've normally taken thirty minutes was done in nearly twenty and when they pulled up to Samezuka's training field where the swim team was patiently waiting, the Mustang's engine thundering like a hundred impatient stallions, jaws dropped. Shun shot through the roof in popularity, and the fact that Samezuka's (pathetically tiny) track team was there as well didn't help at all.

Seijuurou tried to get them past it quickly, although unsuccessfully. The boys were all busy crowding him and demanding her number that he'd promised them the night before, some simply eyeing her (or her car) dreamily. The Samezuka captain, instead, hurriedly introduced Makoto as his assistant for the day and got to work, hollering instructions at everyone. Someone was set as the pace keeper for the jogging exercises and after that, they were off for a good fifteen minutes.  
"Are you sure it's okay for Shun and I to be here?" Makoto asked as he stretched with Seijuurou, glancing over to Shun who was sitting on the roof of her car, hoodie donned over her two-piece, Spot sleeping in her lap, and picking splinters out of her hands. The university student claimed she wanted to chill outside a little longer before returning to her brother's apartment and agreed to wait for the training session to end before sending Makoto back. Knowing Yousuke, he'd probably find an excuse to get everyone drunk all over again since it was a Saturday and Shun was all for avoiding those kinds of things. Plus, she enjoyed seeing Seijuurou and Makoto interact. _Kinda like puppies meeting for the first time_, she laughed to herself.  
Seijuurou glanced over as well. "Nah, it'll be fine. The boys get a little extra motivation when she's around anyway,"  
"It's kinda funny seeing them try so hard just because she's there though, isn't it?" Makoto laughed. "She's hardly paying them any attention anyway,"  
Seijuurou laughed along. "She is pretty attractive though,"  
Makoto felt a squeeze in his chest at that. "You think so?"  
"Yeah, I mean, she's physically, y'know, attractive, and she's funny and sporty and a little weird and stuff. I think a lot of guys on the team would really fall for her if they got to know her," Seijuurou replied.  
The squeeze started to feel heavier. "And you?"  
Seijuurou shrugged and his cheeks went a little pink. "She's nice but… I'm a little… set on someone else," he replied as he refused to make eye contact.  
_Set on someone else,_ Makoto thought. Somehow, that made him feel a little better. He was all for Seijuurou finding love and dating whoever he wished, but somehow it still made him a little upset. Almost possessive. It was odd. He'd never really thought into it before, but now, faced with the possibility that Seijuurou may have affections for someone else, Makoto almost wanted to grab him and make a run for it.  
It was a rather sudden realisation, but he supposed it was a little like how he and Haru became best friends. At first, they just saw each other a lot, and after some time, it was just an unspoken reality that they were best friends. So what did it mean between him and Seijuurou?  
Makoto peered over to him as they finished up their stretches, the pink now faded from Seijuurou's cheeks but still he looked a little bashful nonetheless. _Cute._

From her perch upon her bright red, white striped steed of steel, Shun released a pent up giggle, picking Spot up from her lap and kissing him soundly on the top of his little head.  
"Look at them, Spot," she said to the little feline, "Look at them dance around each other like they're totally not into each other," she barked out a laugh, "It's like a live high school romance drama,"  
Spot just mewed back.  
"Yeah, I know right? Idiots," she chuckled before kissing the little cat again and putting him back on her lap.

She was finally done with picking out the infuriating splinters in her hands, or the big ones at least, and set to work at wrapping a bandage around the gash. She could still feel the pricks of some-twenty other smaller splinters in her hand as she curled and uncurled her fingers like getting pins and needles, but she figured they'd fall out eventually. Being a mechanic, she'd had worse accidents in the past.

But it wasn't even just Shun that was picking up on the affection between the two captains. Around an hour into the training, Seijuurou called for a break and Nitori immediately took off in Shun's direction.  
"Shun-nee-san!" He chirped, waving as he ran up to her.  
"Hey kiddo, how are you feeling?" she asked.  
"I'm doing well," he replied in the same bashful kind of voice that he always had as Shun offered him a hand to help him onto the roof of the car next to her. "Thanks for dropping me off so early in the morning again," he added.  
Shun just waved it off. "Don't even think about it, babe."  
Nitori blushed at that. Shun had randomly announced last night (or very early this morning) as she was driving Nitori back to Samezuka that she had unofficially adopted him as her younger brother and insisted on nicknames like "babe" and "darling" and a whole range of other endearments. Additionally, she locked the doors and refused to let him out until he agreed to call her "Nee-san". Nitori had thought of it as a rather odd exchange, but he just brushed it off as just her being affectionate. Plus, he didn't mind that much.  
"Ah, I actually wanted to ask, did something happen to Seijuurou-senpai last night?" he asked. "He's a little… odd today,"  
Shun snorted loudly and went into a fit of giggles. "Oh, babe, _everything_ happened last night,"  
Nitori frowned in concern. "Nothing bad I hope?"  
"Honey, c'mere," she said, motioning for him to lean his ear closer to her where she then proceeded to tell him about everything she saw between the two captains.  
"Then that means-" Nitori he pointed towards them.  
"Yup,"  
"And Seijuurou-senpai-"  
"Mhmm,"  
"With Makoto-senpai-"  
"Are you sure?"  
"_Oh yeah_,"  
Nitori giggled. "That was a little sudden,"  
Shun could only shrug back. "I've been here for all of about a day but my gaydar is going off the charts, but even so. Friends don't hold hands and spoon each other in their sleep. 'Suke probably has some psychological explanation to it, but that's all too clinical for me. I saw the way they were all close and stuff and that's enough for me to happily say something's going on,"  
"Well, if it means that we're not going to get extra laps then I don't have a problem with it," he replied with a smile.  
Shun blinked at the first-year. "But… it looks like quite a few of your teammates are still going at it," she said, pointing towards the boys who were still running laps and doing other exercises. "Rin's doing plenty extra," she added sarcastically, waving to the redhead who was standing towards the side of the field and glaring at the two of them.  
Nitori giggled like he knew a secret that he'd kept hidden from the world, "They're trying to impress you, Nee-san,"  
Shun blinked again to process the information before a pleased expression graced her features. "Well, what do you know…"

Fifteen minutes later (ten minutes after the break should've ended), Seijuurou jogged up to the fence bordering the field just in front of where Nitori and Shun were.  
"Shun, could I borrow you please?" he asked, the top half of his body leaning over the fence as his hands clapped together in front of him in a gesture of request.  
"Uh, sure?" she replied skeptically at the odd request, "For what exactly?"  
"I was hoping you could maybe share a couple tips with the long distance team?" he asked.  
Shun arched a brow. "Just tips, or am I allowed to bitch them around like I do with 'Suke?" she asked. "I am a very harsh trainer, just so you know,"  
Seijuurou breathed a sigh of relief. "If you could take them for a little while, that would be great. I'm sure they can handle you,"

They couldn't.

Only ten minutes into her training and the fifteen strong long distance team were sweating like pigs.  
"But Nee-san-"  
"Don't you fucking "Nee-san" me Nitori! I want to see push-ups into squats! Twelve sets of two and two! GO!" She hollered at the team as they sobbed their way through the drills.  
"She's… harsh… isn't she…?" Makoto asked Seijuurou as they overlooked the sprint team together.  
"Yeah…" was all Seijuurou could manage. "I didn't expect this side of her at all,"  
"It's a little… intimidating… huh?"  
"Just a bit…"  
"Okay, take a break you freakin' whiners," Shun finally called as they finished their last set, the whole team collapsing lifelessly.

Thankfully, Shun allowed breaks more frequently and for longer periods of time and before long, the remaining 45 minutes of the dry-land training was completed.=  
Contrary to the response he'd expected, Seijuurou found that the team's respect for the little blonde lady simply continued to rise.  
"You lot really are very strange aren't you?" was all she said when one of the long distance team members asked her to come back and train them again as she sat with them in their near-lifeless heap. She found herself very disorientated by the positive response since Yousuke hit her at least twice in any training session for the pain that she put him through.  
"I'm glad that we could have Nee-san to train us today," Nitori managed through huffs as they lay on the grass.  
"You wouldn't say that if you got this on a regular basis," she laughed back, ruffling his hair, sending sweat flying everywhere. "'Suke usually makes his way through dry-land training with cursing and threats on my life," she said as she stood up and moved to go to her car.  
"Where're you going?" Nitori immediately asked.  
"Chill, babe," she laughed, "I'll be back in a tick,"

Shun was surprised to find Seijuurou and Makoto already at her car. The two of them were sitting on the trunk, sitting incredibly, incredibly close to each other. Close enough for their shoulders to bump if there was a strong wind. Close enough for their hands to almost be holding. Wait, _were_ they holding hands? Holy hell, they _were_. Well, they were trying. They were at the stage where their fingers were just touching.  
"Ah, Mako-kun," she said as she walked up, causing them to all but leap off the car and from each other.  
"Oh, a-are you going to go already?" he asked, red-faced and flustered.  
"Actually," she said, ideas spinning webs in her head, "I was planning on staying with the team a little longer," she replied, pulling the trunk open to take out a 24-pack of Red Bull, "Would you mind hanging around maybe another hour?" she asked, handing them both a can.  
The two captains positively beamed at the prospect. "Not at all."

Shun returned to the team giggling wildly. "Alright, you guys are going to have to put up with my horrible company for another hour because things are happening and I literally cannot explain to you the importance of it"  
Nitori sent her a look and she sent it right back.  
"Yes, it is exactly what you're thinking Ai. _Exactly._"


	8. 8: Brotherly Lies

Yousuke wasn't nearly as drunk as Shun had expected. In fact, he wasn't even close to drunk, or even tipsy. He had, in fact, been the responsible adult that he was supposed to be and sent all the kids home, making sure to stop by Makoto's place to inform his parents that he was still out with his friends at Samezuka and assuring them that he was in safe hands.

Then he went to Rei's house, made dinner for him as a kind of apology for the shenanigans of the night before and then here they were, sitting in front of the TV chomping down the tuna, chicken, green-bean, cheese, protein packed spaghetti and pasta bake monstrosity that he'd created. There were no words shared between the brothers. Just a decided silence that bordered a professional atmosphere. This was the part of the trip that Yousuke hadn't been looking forward to.

Talking. He was always shit at it. He always let others talk over him despite his outwardly loud nature. He never argued much. Most people weren't aware, but Yousuke was incredibly insecure in himself. His non-conforming ways never gained him any respect within his academic family. He sighed and twirled a bit of the spaghetti in his bowl. The near three cups worth serving that his brother had given him proved to be too much for his appetite.

"How long are you staying?" Rei asked out of the blue, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the televised crowd, the commentator delivering the ever-familiar "and the crowd goes wild" line as some European bloke scored a spectacular goal of some description.  
Yousuke didn't offer much more than a shrug, eyeing his brother's bowl. "Are you going to eat that or what?"  
Rei shrugged back.  
"Gimme that shit," the older Ryuugazaki grumbled, snatching the bowl and all but inhaling its contents.

Yousuke was also terrible at lying.

* * *

"D's* again, Yousuke?" their father asked, staring down at the sheet of paper that held all of Yousuke's grades. The highschool first-year's** head was bowed, hands balled into fists to the point where his knuckles were going white.  
"What is wrong with you, Yousuke?" their mother asked. "We are Ryuugazaki's. Ryuugazaki's do not fail academically. Even Rei is smarter than you,"

Rei was only in fifth grade, but he knew what they were discussing. Nii-san fell short of the Ryuugazaki standard again.

"I didn't even fail though," was the mumbled reply.  
There was a loud smack, the sound of skin hitting skin. "**Do not** talk back to your mother like that!"

"Yes, father,"

Yousuke's voice sounded heavy. Like he'd been dragged up the side of a mountain and kept awake for weeks on end without water. That kind of heavy. Rei didn't need to be there to see the complete and utter dejection in his brother's eyes. Even curled up tightly in his black and purple striped sheets, he could feel the darkness oozing into his room from Yousuke's seat the kitchen across from their parents like a thick river of coagulating blood. He wasn't the one there, he never was. He always scored the best marks, topped the grade, won at regional and prefectural literacy and numeracy competitions, everything their parents wanted. Still, it scared him.

Yousuke was different to them. Yousuke wanted to paint fields and write stories where the stars were once the pearls from some goddess's necklace. Yousuke wanted to sit on the sand and stare at the sea for whole days on end. Yousuke wanted to take in everything he possibly could and just create.

* * *

Rei quietly observed as his brother shovelled pasta into his mouth with the serving spoon. How odd that the two of them turned out to be so different. Yousuke bordered on completely and utterly barbaric while Rei did everything in his power to demonstrate absolute grace. Yousuke enjoyed noise and disarray as that was his idea of what it meant to be alive. Rei preferred calm and orderliness, the feeling of everything going exactly according to plan.

Rei personified almost every quality the Ryuugazaki's were known for so while he was idolised by his familial peers, and thus, Yousuke took the brunt of every shun and mockery they could muster. It was out of pure luck that their uncle fell madly in love with a designer, thus leading to their family being more (if not completely) open to the idea of non-academic pursuits.

Yousuke was twenty one now. Only eight days out from his twenty first birthday, in fact. Rei had never sent him gifts, or even calls. His brother never complained though; never said that they needed to talk more; never blamed Rei for not trying to keep contact. The younger supposed that perhaps it was because somewhere, Yousuke knew he was ousted by his family, Rei included. He didn't purposefully disregard his brother, of course. It was a constant tug of war between him wanting to support his brother and trying to please his parents but there was simply no way to do both. Supporting his brother would mean subjecting himself to the kind of treatment his parents gave to Yousuke. Pleasing his parents meant keeping away from Yousuke, and after a while it just became habit.

Still, he desperately wished things weren't the way that they were. Yousuke wasn't nearly as bad as he tried to make him out to be. He actually wished that they could've spent a little more time together than they had.

"Do you have any plans other than waking?" Rei asked, eyes still not removed from the screen.  
Yousuke shrugged again.

_Liar._

Rei said nothing.

"Fucking fine," Yousuke snapped. "School is a stinking pile of shit. There, I said it," he shot back, although he lacked the venom he had been hoping to communicate. "Now stop with the whole 'I know what you're up to' act because it's distracting me from the game,"  
"What exactly is this stinking pile of shit?" Rei asked, ignoring his brother's request entirely.  
"The stinking pile of shit is me feeling like a neon pink chicken in a fucking purple dog park when I'm there. Goddamnit, Rei, I don't want to fucking talk about it," Yousuke shot back.  
"Shun put you up to this, didn't she?" Rei continued to pry. "You haven't come down here since you graduated from high school two years ago, and as far as I'm aware you haven't contacted mum or dad either,"  
"You know why I don't fucking talk to them," he snapped, snatching the remote off him and turning the volume of the TV up as loud as was physically bearable. Yousuke didn't even like soccer.

But he was right; Rei knew exactly why Yousuke didn't speak to their parents.

They didn't say anything more on the subject that night. Rei knew that Yousuke would talk about it eventually, especially since he was near certain that Shun had forced him down here. It was probably going to involve their parents at some point though, and the idea of that worried him a little. These were concerns that Rei had never voiced in his life, but he found on more than one occasion that he would worry for his brother's well being.

* * *

They were sitting at the dining table again. Yousuke had his university application papers laid out in front of him. Only an hour earlier, he'd been excitedly telling Rei about how happy he was that he'd been accepted to apply for these courses, but now it was a different story.

"You can't do journalism! What are you thinking, boy? You hardly pay attention in class, how do you think you'll pay enough attention in the real world to even write a half-done article?"  
"Just because Shun's talented in engineering doesn't mean you'll magically pick it up if you're living with her. Either way, you're not going to make any money if you choose to be a mechanic like her. It's only by luck that she got a good position with an average pay,"  
"You barely made the cut for all these subjects that you've shown us. Additionally, you're so terrible at physics, how do you actually expect to achieve anything in the field of astronomy?"  
"No one gets paid to think idealistically. What makes you think you're going to be any better? Forget philosophy and go into accounting instead,"

Yousuke didn't come home the following night. He wouldn't pick up his phone either. Instead, Shun found him on the swing in the park near her house, still in his school uniform with his school bag slung over his shoulder.  
She had run up to him and almost tackled him over in worry.  
He greeted her casually, as if nothing in the world was wrong. He said he'd only come to visit, and Shun would have nearly, _very nearly_ bought it if he wasn't sporting eye bags the size of baseballs and the fact that he lived three hours away by car. He couldn't drive either, so the only other alternative would've been to get three trains cross country, the fastest trip lasting around three and a half hours, the longest closing in on twelve. Not to mention that the collective cost of the tickets was something upwards of 4000 yen**, and without a job, that was a lot of money for Yousuke.

Meanwhile, Iwatobi officials received a call from the Ryuugazaki residence in Iwatobi reporting a lost child. It was literally a matter of minutes before the Osaka Ryuugazaki's were contacted and only a few more before someone was sent to collect him. Rei heard the police report to their parents that Yousuke had begged them to let him stay, and suggested he be evaluated by a psychiatrist at the hospital.

His brother's emotionally unstable state wasn't taken into consideration at all. As soon as the police had left, they flew straight into another one of their rants, this time, their anger was insatiable. Apparently, this time they were upset that he was giving others the impression that Ryuugazaki's were now also crazy.

Yousuke took yet another of their father's beatings. Rei often wondered what it was like to be beaten like that. He wondered even more how his brother could stay motionless throughout all of it. It was incredibly strange for him to be so quiet around their parents considering how loud he was outside their house.

* * *

The TV volume was turned down.  
"I think I'm going to hit the sack early," Yousuke announced, the three litre baking dish and Rei's bowl now scraped clean, "Shun was a bitch at training today,"  
Rei just nodded his head and his brother took the cue to momentarily disappear into the kitchen.

"You're alright, aren't you?" he asked when Yousuke reappeared.  
There was a moment of hesitation.  
"You aren't going to do anything… _y'know_ again, right?"  
Yousuke heaved a sigh. "Nah, I think I've moved past that. Plus, I think things will be different by the time I go back,"  
Rei had no idea what he was talking about, but he sure as hell hoped his brother did. "Well, I won't pry any more, but whatever you're planning, I hope it turns out for the best,"  
"Me too, bro," Yousuke chuckled, reaching over to ruffle his hair before turning towards the bedroom. "Me too,"

* * *

*A "D" mark given in Japan is a mark of 60-69%, considered an average or pass. /wiki/Academic_grading_in_Japan

**A highschool first-year in Japan is the equivalent of a year 11 student in the states.

***roughly USD$40


	9. 9: An Hour and Then Some (Part 1)

Seijuurou and Makoto resumed their positions on the boot of Shun's car soon after she'd returned to the group lying lifelessly on the grass. The good majority of the rest of Samezuka's team had returned to their dorms, although a small number of brave sprinters had stayed behind to try and get closer to her.  
Makoto chuckled. "That's kinda, cute isn't it?" he asked.  
"Huh?" Seijuurou responded dumbly, cracking his can open and taking a sip.  
"Your team," he clarified. "They're positively fawning over Shun-san, although it looks like she's already got favourites," he added, referencing to the fact that Nitori's head was comfortably rested on her shoulder, her phone held out a little ways in front of them as they posed for a selfie. Their backs were turned to them, but Makoto could feel the cheerfulness coming from the small group. He was sure both Shun and Nitori were grinning like idiots. Surprisingly, Rin had decided to stay behind with the small number of sprint swimmers, although he chose to just sit around the outside of the group and quietly sip his drink.

Seijuurou just hummed his agreement and a comfortable silence settled between them. He was glad they could spend a little more time alone, but was internally shooting daggers at Shun. He had been _so close_ to Makoto before she turned up looking all happy with her goddamn Red Bull.

And now they were sitting a whole foot apart again. _A whole foot._ That took him a whole fifteen minutes to cover last time and that was because he kept finding reasons to tease the puppy-eyed captain and follow it up with a playful nudge, all the while tactfully inching closer to him. If he were to repeat the process now, his plan would be painfully obvious. He was going to need to be rather cunning about the whole thing.

He crawled over by a couple inches while Makoto was preoccupied with watching the Samezuka team fool around as they tried to get into Shun and Nitori's photo. He managed to recover about two thirds of the lost "closeness".  
_Smooth move,_ _Mikoshiba_, he commended himself. _Smooth move._

"Good lord, are you seeing this, Nitori?" Shun asked, tilting her phone again so that the camera was fixed on Seijuurou and Makoto.  
"Oh my god, senpai is trying so hard," he giggled back as Seijuurou continued to inch closer.  
"Ugh, tell me about it."  
The near twenty other boys were swarming around behind the two of them, completely perplexed as to what they were talking about. _Which senpai were they talking about? And what was he trying to do? Why was he trying so hard? _It was a little hard to tell with the vague descriptions that Shun provided them.  
Nitori just went into a fit of maniacal giggling and cackling.  
"What the hell are you so happy about?" Rin asked, though it came out more as a remark of annoyance despite his genuine curiosity. He did well to hide his other questions as well. Questions like: _When the actual fuck did Shun and Nitori get so fucking close? _and _Why the fuck were they looking at Mikoshiba and Mako through her phone?  
_"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Nitori squealed, "_So close!_"  
There couldn't have been more than three inches between the two captains now. Their knees were almost touching, and it wasn't like either of them were sitting in particularly open postures either.

Makoto went beet red when he felt Seijuurou's knee knock his. Still he retained his vocal composure, keeping his head turned towards the group on the grass as he kept up the conversation with Seijuurou.

Neither Shun nor Nitori missed this little development.  
"Oh my g-" Shun cut herself off, dropping her phone in what appeared to be an epiphany of revolutionary equivalence.  
"What is it, Nee-san?" Nitori asked, immediately curious as to what Shun was planning.  
She just grinned madly at him.  
"Gather around boys! I have important news!"  
They did exactly as she asked, of course.  
"Here's the deal, if all of you beat your personal best by the next time I see you, I will award all of you with a kiss on the cheek," she said, much to the delight of the boys who seemed to positively explode with happiness as they began to cheer and wrestle each other. It was causing quite a commotion.  
"This offer, however, is limited to just you!" Shun raised her voice, bringing order back to the small group and reforming the huddle. "Everyone who left early will not be included so you better get a really good time and maybe I'll kiss you twice," she winked at them, causing a few to screech giddily.  
"Captain SeiBaka, however" she added, thumbing behind in Seijuurou's direction, "is definitely off the list because he's a pain in the butt,"  
This caused even more screeching, mainly due to Seijuurou having the reputation of a notorious player and having next to no trouble in picking up whoever he wanted (or so they thought). This was as close to a defeat as they'd ever get against the red-headed captain in this field.

Seijuurou blinked, looking away from Makoto for the first time in a(n embarrassingly) long time and raising a brow at the boys on the field who had suddenly gone rampant for whatever odd reason. They also appeared to be… pointing at him…? and… _chanting?!_ What were they chanting? … _It sounded like… k… ki- _**_What.  
_**Makoto had also appeared to have gone stiff. "Wh- What are th- They're not saying what I think they're saying are they?" he asked nervously.  
Seijuurou came up blank. "I really, really hope not,"  
Their gazes redirected to Shun in confusion as the taunting chant of _"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"_ continued, looking for an explanation of some kind.  
She and Nitori simply clasped their hands together, got close to each other and made kissing faces in their direction.

Seijuurou and Makoto both locked up in absolute fear.

**_Shit, they know._**

Seijuurou grabbed Makoto by the hand, and took off without a second thought, ignoring the cat calls that followed them as he lead Makoto out of the school.  
"Goddamn that crazy old lady!" he cursed as he stomped down the path, face as red as his hair. "I don't care how much the team improves, I'm going to wring her neck!"  
"Uh, senpai…" Makoto reminded him gently, causing the Samezuka captain to realise what he was doing and leap a foot away from him.  
"Ah! S-Sorry!" he apologised, face going even redder than before, "U-uh, I- um, I was-," He didn't have a very good excuse for what he did and Makoto must've noticed because the he just chuckled at him. "Shun pissed me off, okay?" Seijuurou grumbled in a ditch attempt at recovering. If his face grew any redder at this point, he would've started going purple. "And I already told you, cut out the senpai shit when it's not something with teachers or whatever,"  
Makoto just gave him his droopy smile again and scratched his head. "Ah, yeah, I forgot..."

There was a short silence, the comfortable kind where you could sit happily in and never feel lonely. They'd already walked a good distance away from Samezuka's campus. The sun had set some time ago, so in the bordering area of town that they were stood, with the only streetlights a good fifty feet ahead or behind them, the night sky was lit by a flowing stream of stars.

"D-Do you... wanna get the train?" Seijuurou asked quietly, still refusing to meet eyes with Makoto. "I've got enough money for tickets and stuff, and I'll walk you home. Plus… it's kinda nice out,"  
Makoto tilted his head at Seijuurou, then looked up to the night sky. "Yeah, I think that'll be nice," he smiled. "I should probably go back and tell Shun th-"  
"Don't worry about her," he cut him off. "I'll text Rin or something," he promised, lightly bumping shoulders with Makoto before walking ahead. "C'mon."

Since they'd only just missed the rush hour trains, both captains were sat together on a bench. Seijuurou lied and said he was feeling cold and wanted Makoto to sit closer so he could "leech off some of his warmth". He felt pretty proud of himself for that one. Makoto didn't seem to mind, squeezing up next to him so that his whole right side was pressed against Seijuurou. He felt a little bad for exploiting Makoto's unquestioning kindness, but it still made him pretty happy.

They would've made normal conversation, probably about the infrequency of the trains now that the homebound workers were all gone, but it helped none that Seijuurou's phone would not stop going off with texts from Nitori.  
"I swear to god, this better be important," Seijuurou cursed as his phone went off for the twentieth time that night.  
[Message Received: Matsuoka] _i'll tell her but i still dont kno wtf is goin on. u better fuckin explain this 2 me l8r_ [Message End]  
He just deadpanned at the message and tapped out a reply.  
[Message Sent] _if u ask about what happened i'll make u do xtra laps._ [Message End]  
The phone buzzed again not long after.  
[Message Received: Matsuoka]_ fine asshole. see if i fuckin care. _[Message End]  
Another message popped up, just as he finished reading and Rin's pissy attitude was quickly forgotten.  
[Message Received: Nitori] _Shun says she wants to kno if there's any progress 2night ;D_ [Message End]  
So far Nitori (with the assistance of Shun) had been relentless in showering him in a hail of texts of "support". The gesture would have been sweet if anything was actually going on between them so Seijuurou just kept to seething in anger as he mashed back a reply.  
[Message Sent] _You get 20 xtra laps the nxt training._ [Message End]  
"Is everything alright?" Makoto asked when Seijuurou angrily slammed the flip cover of his phone shut.  
Seijuurou immediately wiped his expression with a smile, as sheepish as he could manage. "Ah, it was nothing. Just kids on the team,"  
Makoto, as trusting as ever, just replied with an "Ah, I see," then settled back into a quiet lull.  
Seijuurou's phone buzzed again.  
[Message Received: Unknown Number] _No extra laps for the kids. I'm taking them next training. You better have a full report on any developments from tonight for me when I see you next big boy ;) - Shun _[Message End]  
The speed at which Seijuurou shut his phone then nearly broke the sound barrier.

Makoto, on the other hand, appeared to be somewhat concerned.  
"Are you sure it's okay for you to be sending me home?" he asked. "It seems like you're kinda popular tonight," he chuckled lightheartedly.  
"Yeah, I mean no, I mean, I'm not really needed right now. It's just the kids being annoying and shit," Seijuurou mumbled.  
"I can make my own way back, y'know. You don't have to go through with it just because you offered to," Makoto reminded him kindly.  
"Yeah, well, it's not like I'm going to actually do anything back at school. I may as well enjoy myself outside," he said lamely. "Anyway, if I go back I've gotta deal with the kids on the team," he blushed as he remembered their "Kiss" chanting. "Plus, I heard a rumour about a spike in rapists and pedophiles or something around here recently. Y'never know and stuff…" he trailed off when he realised he'd begun making excuse after excuse.  
Makoto just chuckled again. "I never thought that you'd be the kind of person to be interested in local gossip,"  
"I'm not!" he immediately protested, blushing even more. "I have a sister so she talks about this stuff a lot,"  
"Ah, I see," Makoto just smiled as the train (finally) pulled up.

They boarded and sat themselves down in a free spot (that itself, however, was a tough decision since the whole train was empty) and continued their small talk. It was mainly Seijuurou who spoke, since he couldn't take the silence. Makoto appreciated it though. He had always been the one to fill the silence between him and Haru, although that wasn't at all necessary since neither of them needed to speak to know what the other was thinking. Makoto had just been there to provide pleasant noise that never meant very much at all. But funnily enough, it was something important in their odd relationship. It was then, sitting next to Seijuurou in the empty train carriage and listening to the sound of his voice babble away in the background of his mind, that he understood what it was like to be on the quieter end of that kind of relationship. It was lovely. Seijuurou's voice made a protective bubble of sorts, kinda like his arms when he hugged him at the party. Makoto thought it was an odd thing to think, but despite himself, he decided he enjoyed being "bubbled in" like that.

Bubbles, however, have a tendency to pop.  
"Makoto?"  
"Hm?" he responded, still in a bit of a daze.  
"Your phone," Seijuurou pointed towards the rectangle of light buzzing in Makoto's pocket.  
"Oh! Sh-" Makoto cursed as he ripped the phone out, slamming the "Answer Call" button. "Hello?"  
_"Oh, you're okay,"_ came the response. _"Where are you?"  
_"Haru?" the captain asked, double checking the name on the screen. "You're actually using your cell for once!"  
_"Well, it's kinda late and I didn't see you get home yet,"_ Haru responded bluntly.  
"Ah, my parents must be worrying right now," Makoto sighed, "Could you let them know I'll be home soon?"  
_"No need,"_ Haru replied._ "Yousuke-san stopped by your place to let your parents know where you were and that Shun-san was looking after you. They seemed pretty relaxed after that,"  
_"Then… Why are you calling?" Makoto asked.  
_"I just wanted to know where you are,"  
_He smiled, then chuckled to himself. "So, the infamous Nanase Haruka gets worried as well," he teased.  
_"You still haven't answered the question you know,"_ Haru shot back to avoid responding to that.  
Makoto just snickered into the phone. "Seijuurou wanted to go for a walk so I'm on the train on the way home with him. Shun-san's hanging out with Samezuka's long distance team. I think she made herself their new coach or something,"  
Seijuurou harrumphed beside him. "She commandeered my team is what she fucking did. Tch, I'm going to hit that stupid old lady one of these days," he grumbled to no one in particular.  
Makoto couldn't help but giggle. "Either way, I'll be home soon,"  
And what an interesting adventure that would turn out to be.


End file.
